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_ RES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. Translated 

itli a Memoir by J. 15. Robkutson, Esq. Portrait. 
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31. GOETHE'S WORKS. Vol.1. [His Autobiography. 13 Books.] Portrait. 

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LAMARTINES HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1848. 

&. 60. JUNIUS'S LETTER Vols. 

65.60.65.71 VASARIS LIVES OF THE MOST CELEBRATED PAINTERS, 
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CRITICAL ESSAYS 



CONTRIBUTED TO 



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AUTHOR Ot "ESSAYS ON t DECISION OF CHARACTER," ETC., ETC. 



EDITED BY 



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VOL. I. 



LONDON : 
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1857. 






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PREFACE. 





These volumes are, for the most part, a reprint of the 
" Contributions, Biographical, Literary, and Philosophical to 
the Eclectic Review, by John Poster, &c," edited by my 
friend Dr. Price, in 1844. 

Dr. Price, in his preface, after giving some account of the 
establishment and original constitution of the Eclectic 
Review, informs us that, " Mr. Poster's connexion with the 
Review commenced in 1806, his first paper being published 
in the November of that year. Prom this period, to the 
close of 1818, he was a stated and frequent contributor ; 
after which he remitted his labours in this direction, furnish- 
ing only thirteen papers from 1819 to 1828, inclusive. 

" On the journal passing into the hands of the present 
Editor in January, 1837, he made application to Mr. Foster 
for literary assistance, and was authorized to announce him 
as one of the stated contributors to the work. The impaired 
condition of his health did not, however, permit him to do 
much. An occasional article was all that could be looked 
for, the fastidiousness of his taste concurring with the cause 
just named, to indispose him to frequent composition. His 
last contribution appeared in October, 1839, when, however, 
the prospect was held out of still further aid. 

" This prospect was unhappily not realized, though the 
conditional promise was renewed from time to time. "Writing 
to the Editor, January 28,- 1841, Mr. Poster says, — ' With 
my almost total want of memory, and miserable slowness in 
any sort of composition, I am many degrees below the mark 
for anything of material account — anything requiring much 
reading or laborious consideration. As to long reading, my 
eyes have their veto, and if I had read any considerable 
book, I should, when I closed it, be just in the plight of 
Nebuchadnezzar with his dream — minus the resource of any 
one to call in as a substitute for Daniel.' " 

In this new edition the Reviews have been printed in 
chronological order, without any attempt at classification. 
Running titles have been added, which will in some 
measure answer the purpose of an analysis, by directing 
the reader at a glance to the principal topic of discussion ; 
and in order as much as possible to give to these compo- 
sitions the form of Essays, a general title, whenever prac- 



IV PEEEACE. 

ticable, has been substituted for that of the book under 
review. 

Several articles will be found in these volumes which 
were not inserted in Dr. Price's Edition. In point of 
intellectual ability, it is believed that they are not at all 
inferior to the others, while their subjects will add to the 
interest and variety of the work ; some of them will serve 
to show more distinctly Mr. Foster's taste for Antiquities 
and the Tine Arts, to which, perhaps, justice has not yet 
been done by the brief notices in his Biography.* On 
the other hand, a few articles have been omitted, chiefly 
relating to Indian Missions, which possessed but a temporary 
interest ; a sufficient number, however, on that subject, 
are retained, to be a memorial of the powerful manner in 
which he advocated missionary efforts and the principles of 
religious toleration, at a period when they were assailed with 
a virulence and coarseness not likely we may hope ever 
to be repeated. Since that time, the religious and social 
relations of India have been undergoing great changes, 
of which " the end is not yet." Though Christianity 
must still, as ever, maintain a militant attitude, its assailants 
are generally of a different order from the " Bengal 
Officers" and " Scott-Warings," whose literary castigation 
from Mr. Foster's pen can only be paralleled by that inflicted 
on their prototypes, Thersites and Irus, by the brawny arm 
of Ulysses. 

In conclusion, these Critical Essays are once more pre- 
sented to the public with the confident persuasion that (to 
use Dr. Price's words) " in all the higher and more perma- 
nent qualities of intellect, in their largeness of view, pene- 
trating subtlety of thought, deep insight into human nature, 
and sympathy with the nobler and more lofty forms of 
spiritual existence, they will be found eminently worthy of 
the genius of their author, and subserve to his permanent 
repute." 

J. E. EYLAND. 

Northampton, 
October 7 1856. 

* Life and Correspondence, Vol. II., pp. 289, 293. Bonn's edition* 



CONTENTS OF YOL. I. 



ON TRAVEL WRITING. 
Carr's Stranger in Ireland. — November and December, 1806 . . 1 

ON MEMOIR WRITING. 
Forbes's Life of Beattie. — January and February, 1807 . . 17 

THOUGHTS ON AFFECTATION. 
Thoughts on Affectation, by a Lady. — February, 1807 . . .34 

THE FUTURE OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 
The Stranger in America. — June, 1807 44 

ON MEMOIR WRITING. 
Memoirs of Lord Karnes. — July and August, 1807 . . .63 

ON BLAIR'S LIFE AND WRITINGS. 
Characteristics of his Sermons. — December, 1807 . . . .81 

ON DAVID HUME. 
Life and Writings of David Hume, Esq., by Thomas Edward 
Ritchie. — January, 1808 95 

HINDOO IDOLATRY AND CHRISTIANITY. 
Vindication of the Hindoos, by a Bengal Officer. — March, 1808 . 110 

VINDICATION OF THE BAPTIST MISSIONARIES. 
Scott-Waring's Letters on India.— May, 1808 . . , .132 

ON POETICAL CRITICISM. 
Stockdale's Lectures on the English Poets, — March, 1808 , , 144 

ON PERSONAL VIRTUE IN ITS RELATION TO 
POLITICAL EMINENCE. 
Fox's History of the Reign of James II. — September, 1808 . . 157 

ON STATESMEN. 
Lives of British Statesmen, by John MacDiarmid, Esq. — October 
and November, 1808 189 

MEMOIRS OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 

Memoirs of Sir Thomas More, by A. Cayley, Esq. — December, 1808 217 

CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 
Cunningham's Essay. — December, 1808 .,,,.. 227 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

ON PALEY AS A' THEOLOGIAN. 
Paley's Sermons. — January, 1809 236 

AMERICA BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 
Memoirs of an American Lady. — February, 1809 .... 251 

ON THE PENINSULAR WAR. 
Chronicle of the Cid, by Robert Southey— M arch, 1809 . . 264 

SYDNEY SMITH'S SERMONS. 
Sermons, by Rev. Sydney Smith, M.A. — May and June, 1809 . 285 

PALEY'S MEMOIRS. 
Memoirs of William Paley, D.D., by G. W. Meadley.— June, 1809 . 315 

ROSE ON FOX'S HISTORY. 
Observations on Fox's History, by the Right Hon. George Rose — 
July, 1809 329 

ON THEATRICAL AMUSEMENTS. 
Plumtre's Four Discourses. — November, 1809 .... 343 

CHARACTERS OF FOX. 
Characters of Fox, by Philopatris Varvicensis. — December, 1809 . 358 

EDUCATION IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION. 

Edgeworth's Essays. — January and February, 1810 . . . 372 

SANSCRIT LITERATURE. 
The Ramayuna of Valmeeki. — September, 1810 .... 400 

THE MORALITY OF WORKS OF FICTION. 
Tales of Fashionable Life, by Miss Edgeworth. — October, 1810 . 417 

ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 
Mr. Windham's Speech on Cruelty to Animals. — November, 1810 . 428 

SOUTHEYS CURSE OF KEHAMA. 
The Curse of Kebama, by Robert Southey. — March and April, 1811 453 

VINDICATION OF FOX'S HISTORY. 
A Vindication of Fox's History, by Samuel Heywood. — December, 
1811 . 495 

JESSE'S SERMONS. 
Sermons, by William Jesse, M.A. — April, 1812 .... 515 



CRITICAL ESSAYS 



ON TBAVEL-WEITINGk 

The Stranger in Ireland ; or, a Tour in the Southern and Western 
Parts of that Country, in the Year 1805. By John Carr ; Esq. 
4to. 1806. 

Mr Care, is a traveller whom any sensible observer would 
like to accompany a few hundred miles. He possesses, in 
perfection, one qualification, for which many men who have 
more cariosity than spirit or address, will envy him, and 
very justly envy him ; a happy mixture of confidence, 
adroitness, and insinuation. By means of this he obtains 
access to every place and every person without the smallest 
difficulty. The moment he arrives at any place as a perfect 
stranger, he seems to inform himself of everything which it 
would be desirable to inspect, and the next moment he is 
introduced to the object of curiosity as readily as if he had 
lived on the spot twenty years, and knew every person there. 
He enters with equal ease the peasant's cabin, the country 
ale-house, the city-hotel, and the splendid mansion of nobility. 
No apprehensive awkwardness detains him at the gate of a 
great man's house, hesitating some minutes before he 
ventures to ring the bell, as many a poor scholar, or rustic 
man of taste, and even many a philosopher would do, while 
he tried to inspirit himself by recollecting the maxims of 
Epictetus, or the noble sentiments of modern doctors on the 
subject of the equality of mankind. He presents himself 
with an air perfectly unembarrassed, and the "pampered 
menial" skips along the hall to announce, he has no doubt, 
some old familiar acquaintance of my lord. If, on the 
introduction, my lord should amidst his complaisance, show 
any little degree of grave doubtful inquisitiveness, Mr. 



2 OK TBAYEL-WRITIFG. 

Carr advances with such a frank and gallant air, that formal 
ceremony is ashamed to stay in the room, and quickly takes 
itself off. 

The travelling vehicles in some parts of Ireland are justly 
described as miserable conveyances, and there is many a 
worthy English gentleman that would deny himself the 
sight of the most beautiful scenes, if he must visit them 
under the pains and penalties of being jammed, and rattled, 
and tossed, and stared at, in a jingle, a noddy, or a jaunting 
car. Our author, though no stranger to the luxury of easy 
or splendid carriages, was capable of very properly despising 
a temporary inconvenience, if any gratification of his taste 
for the beautiful or the sublime was to be obtained by 
enduring it. And though a connoisseur in matters of good 
living, and especially an excellent judge of wines, he could 
make himself very easy and pleasant over the most homely 
viands, in those wild situations, where it would have been 
absurd to complain that the hostess had not studied any 
large volume on the art of cookery, and had not a larder or 
cellar ample enough to turn such study to any great practical 
account. With the exception of a few such slight incon- 
veniences, no traveller ever went on under a more continual 
sunshine of good fortune than Mr. Carr, according to his 
lively narrative. The "Green Island" seems to have 
arrayed itself in all its beauties to receive him, and the 
utmost politeness of its inhabitants met him at every stage. 
Nor did these gratifying circumstances fail to produce the 
due effect on the traveller, whose good-humour would appear 
to have been but very few times interrupted. This good- 
humour sparkles out in a continual series of light pleasan- 
tries ; and though we would not harshly censure the gaiety 
which an extensive view of an unhappy nation did not 
repress, yet we cannot help thinking that a philanthropy of 
the most elevated kind would occasionally have been pensive, 
where Mr. Carr is very sprightly ; and that a refined love of 
justice would have been severe and indignant, in a few 
instances in which he is extremely tolerant. 

Mr. Carr's intellectual qualifications are well adapted to 
that kind of travelling which the present volume exhibits. 
He does not survey a country with a view to form or illus- 
trate moral or political theories, or to select the physical 



CARE'S STRANGER IjS t IRELAND. 3 

subjects of scientific investigation. It is not in the particular 
character of naturalist, virtuoso, antiquarian, or statesman, 
that he travels, nor exactly in the character of philosopher, 
but simply in that of a man of sense and taste, who wishes 
fairly to see and hear whatever is most deserving of attention, 
.•and to write a spirited description and narration of what he 
happens to observe. We certainly could have wished, on 
some occasions, a little more grave research, at the same 
time that we deprecate that pedantry which cannot make a 
remark without extending it into a dissertation. It is with 
a very ill will, we own, that we accompany a traveller, who 
regularly at every town he comes to, or at every old heap of 
stones near the road, plants himself in form to make a long 
speech. Mr. Carr generally seizes with quickness and 
accuracy the characteristic peculiarities of the people, and 
of local situations, while he passes from place to place with 
a celerity which gives us the idea of scampering. 

In the preface, and in several other parts of the book, he 
takes pains to apprize the reader, that none of his obser- 
vations on the state of Ireland are to be construed as 
referring to political questions, or as intimating any kind of 
opinion on the causes of the late melancholy events in that 
country. Probably, this is a well-judged forbearance in a 
work like the present. But we earnestly wish that some 
liberal Englishman, who has been long conversant with 
mankind and with the speculations relating to their interests, 
who is equally free from superstitious veneration for old 
practices and from a rage for novelty and hazardous experi- 
ments, who is pure from the infection of party interest, and 
dares to arraign indifferently any party or every party at the 
bar of absolute justice, would traverse Ireland expressly 
with a view to form a comprehensive estimate of the moral 
and political condition and wants of the people ; and then 
present to the public the assemblage of facts, together with 
the observations which he had been most prompted to make 
while those facts were before him. 

The first chapter narrates the journey frOm London (as 
it should seem) to the entrance of the Bay of Dublin, and 
it makes us perfectly acquainted with the dispositions of the 
traveller. Our readers never met with a more gay and 
animated gentleman in their lives. He never lets himself 

b 2 



4 ON TRAYEL-WEITING. 

be long disconcerted by untoward circumstances. If for a 
moment his indignation is excited by "those detestable, 
corrupt harpies called custom-house officers," he almost 
immediately forgets them. And even the pains of sympathy, 
which he sometimes feels, do not become troublesome to the 
reader, by producing long sentimental declamations. The 
tragical objects which occasionally interrupt the course of 
his pleasantry, do not in the least haunt him afterwards. 
Though decorously serious, or at least demure, in the house 
of mourning, he can laugh, dance, and sing, as soon as he 
has quitted it. 

The first chapter is marked by almost all the character- 
istics which distinguish Mr. Carr's manner of writing travels. 
The descriptions are quick, clear, and lively. He marks so 
well the prominent circumstances of each situation or society, 
that he really makes his reader his companion ; and this we 
deem very high praise. At the same time we are disposed 
to complain, that he rather too often introduces from his 
memory, at the suggestion of some very slight association of 
thought, stories which might quite as well have been put in 
any other part of the book, or in no part of it. These may 
sometimes be curious in themselves, like the circumstance of 
Mr. Bolton's wager at Paris (p. 6.), and might do very well 
to keep up the chat with his associates in the coach ; but the 
reader of a costly book of travels will not be so patient. He 
wants information strictly relating to the place which the 
traveller has thought it worth while to visit and describe ; 
and can find miscellaneous anecdotes at any time, in any old 
volume of a magazine. We might complain too, that our 
author's lavish eulogiums of all the people of rank that 
happen to be civil to him, have sometimes made us a little 
splenetic. We certainly are pleased with his good fortune 
in meeting so luckily with my Lady Tuite, &c. &c; and with 
his pathetic gratitude for slices of broiled mutton (especially 
as it was Welsh mutton), most seasonably given him when 
he was nearly famished in the packet ; but when we are told 
he made on the instant a solemn vow that all his readers 
should be informed of this most rare bounty, we cannot but 
wish his conscience had permitted him to break it. We have 
a better opinion of Mr. Carr, than to think that if Pat 
M'Cann, or Judith M'JNabb, or some such responsible per- 



CAEE's STEAK GEE, IK IEELAKD. 5 

sonage, "had divided the little stock of provisions with him, 
he would not have been grateful; but we greatly doubt 
whether he would have been so eloquent. 

Now and then we meet with matters so trivial, that we 
are sorry a man of sense should have condescended to record 
them; for instance, the story about the boots (p. 24). 
Nothing can tend more effectually to bring the writing of 
travels into contempt, than to occupy splendid quarto pages 
with incidents which a company of louts at a pot-house 
must be reduced to a very great scarcity of subjects before 
any of them would think it worth while to mention. Our 
author is so determined from the outset, to have something 
funny , every few pages at least, that he will pick up the 
slightest facts or the slenderest witticisms for that purpose, 
rather than go soberly on his journey. About every mile- 
post he stops to laugh, and insists that his readers shall join 
him, whether they can or not. Sometimes indeed, we readily 
perform our part of this ceremony ; as when he mentions 
(p. 31), that "the secretary of a celebrated English agri- 
cultural society received orders from its committee, to pro- 
cure several copies of Mr. and Miss Edgeworth's Essay on 
Irish Bulls, upon the first appearance of that admirable book, 
for the use of the members in their labours for improving 
the breed of cattle." 

After escaping from what he calls oddly enough, " that 
consummation of human misery, a cabin,"after a short 
voyage," he reaches Dublin, and frisks round a considerable 
part of the city before dinner, admiring, as every stranger 
will admire, several of the streets and squares, which are 
allowed to be among the noblest in Europe. His extensive 
previous travels enabled him to form a comparative judg- 
ment with great advantage. But these proud exhibitions of 
wealth and taste cease to please a humane traveller, as soon 
as he beholds the hideous contrast between them and the 
dwellings and entire condition of the poor. It is melancholy 
to see in the immediate neighbourhood of all this splendour, 
the ample proofs how little the prosperous and powerful 
part of mankind care for the miserable. We do not pretend 
to believe that the resources of the rich, and the power of 
the state, could banish poverty, and the whole of its atten- 
dant and consequent evils, from a great city; but it is 



6 Off TKAYEL-WBITING. 

impossible to see such sinks of filth, such a multitude of 
wretched, ragged, and half-famished creatures crowded into 
alleys and cellars, and such a prodigious number of mendi- 
cants, without pronouncing the severest condemnation on 
the idle and luxurious opulence, and the strange state policy, 
which can preserve, year after year, a cool indifference to all 
this misery. 

Mr. Carr visited the beautiful scenes in the county of 
"Wicklow, and we should have thought meanly of his taste, 
if he had adopted, in describing them, a language of less 
animated admiration. We should have required this language 
from a man the most parsimonious of strong epithets ; but 
from our author we have a special claim to emphatical terms 
superlatively magnified, when speaking of grand subjects, 
because he sometimes applies emphatical terms, especially 
the word infinite, to very little ones, We have hinted 
before, that brilliant expressions are elicited from him with 
wonderful facility and copiousness, whenever he comes 
within the precincts or the apartments of an opulent villa. 
In page 200, he describes a visit to such a villa, the lady of 
which patronizes a school of industry for girls. This school 
it seems is in its nature a losing concern, and costs her some 
inconsiderable sum every year. In the contemplation of 
this generosity, Mr. Carr is so affected, that his thoughts 
are transported for once to the joys of heaven, as the 
unquestionable reversion awaiting such transcendent good- 
ness. We were half inclined to take exception to this 
language, as somewhat too strong for the occasion ; but we 
stood corrected for this feeling on reading the paragraphs 
immediately following, which describe a magnificent and 
most extravagantly expensive luxury in the appendages of 
this mansion. That after such a consumption of money, any 
small sum should have been reserved for a school of industry, 
and that amidst such a " voluptuous" paradise, there should 
have been any recollection, of so humble a concern, appeared 
to us an excess of bounty and condescension, which Mr. 
Carr's panegyric had too feebly applauded. But though 
the traveller's amiable propensity to celebrate good actions 
becomes peculiarly strong in the genial neighbourhood of 
rank and elegance, it would be unjust to deny that he is 
capable of discerning excellence in subordinate stations of 



CASE S STEANGEE Ltf IRELAND. 7 

life. A little earlier in his book he gives an example, which 
we will transcribe, and we cannot help it if any reader shonld 
deem this a specimen of much more rare and costly virtue, 
than that which we have joined the author in admiring. 

" The following little anecdote will prove that magnanimity is 
also an inmate of an Irish cabin. During the march of a regi- 
ment, the Honourable Captain P , who had the command of 

the artillery baggage, observing that one of the peasants, whose 
car and horse had been pressed for the regiment, did not drive 
as fast as he ought, went up to him and struck him ; the poor 
fellow shrugged up his shoulders, and observed there was no 
occasion for a blow, and immediately quickened the pace of his 
animal. Some time afterwards, the artillery officer having been 
out shooting all the morning, entered a cabin for the purpose of 
resting himself, when he found the very peasant whom he had 
struck, at dinner with his wife and family : the man who was 
very large and powerfully made, and whose abode was solitary, 
might have taken fatal revenge upon the officer, instead of which, 
immediately recognizing him, he chose the best potato out of 
his bowl, and presenting it to his guest, said, ' There, your honour, 
oblige me by tasting a potato, and I hope it is a good one, but 
you should not have struck me — a blow is hard to bear.' " — Pp. 
150, 151. 

By means of a wide diversity of narrative and anecdote, 
Mr. Carr furnishes a striking picture of the Irish character, 
as it appears in the lower ranks throughout the middle and 
southern parts of the country. His manner of exhibiting 
the national character, by means of a great assortment of 
weli-chosen facts, and short conversations, gives a much 
more lively representation than any formal philosophic work, 
composed chiefly of general observations. At the same time, 
it will not be unjust to remark, that only a very small portion 
of toil and reflection is necessary for executing such a work. 
"Writing travelling memoranda was a pleasant employment 
of many intervals and evenings, which would otherwise have 
been unoccupied and tedious; and, to form a volume, the 
author had not much more to do than to revise these 
memoranda, and add certain extracts from old and new 
books, with a few calculations and general statements. The 
book is such an enumeration of particulars, and series of 
short sketches, as a philosopher would wish to obtain in 
order to deduce, by abstracting the essence of the whole 



8 ON TRAVEL WHITING. 

mixture, a comprehensive character of the people and the 
country. It is like an irregular heap of materials which the 
artist must melt together, in order to cast one complete and 
well-proportioned figure. 

It will be obvious to the readers of this volume, that the 
Irish people have a national character widely different from 
that of the English. And it will be the utmost want of 
candour, we think, to deny that they are equal to any nation 
on the earth, in point of both physical and intellectual 
capability. A liberal system of government, and a high 
state of mental cultivation, would make them the Athenians 
of the British empire. By what mystery of iniquity, or 
infatuation of policy, has it come to pass, that they have 
been doomed to unalterable ignorance, poverty, and misery, 
and reminded one age after another of their dependence on 
a protestant power, sometimes by disdainful neglect, and 
sometimes by the infliction of plagues. The temper of our 
traveller is totally the reverse of any thing like querulous- 
ness or faction ; but he occasionally avows, both in sorrow 
and in anger, the irresistible impression made, by what he 
witnessed, on an honest, and we believe we may say, generous 
mind. He clearly sees that the lower order of the people, 
whatever might be their disposition, have, in the present 
state of things, absolutely no power to redeem themselves 
from their deplorable degradation. "Without some great, 
and as yet unattempted, and perhaps unprojected, plan for 
the relief of their pressing physical wants, they may remain 
another century in a situation, which a Christian and a 
philanthropist cannot contemplate without a grief approach- 
ing to horror. Their popery and their vice will be alleged 
against them ; if the punishment is to be that they shall be 
left in that condition wherein they will inevitably continue 
popish and vicious still, their fate is indeed mournful ; ven- 
geance could hardly prompt a severer retribution. Mr. Carr 
approves of the Union, and faintly expresses his hope that 
great benefits may yet result from it ; but plainly acknow- 
ledges that a very different system of practical administra- 
tion must be adopted, before Ireland can have any material 
cause to be grateful for this important measure. 

It is a particular excellence of the book before us, that 
the diversified facts are so well exhibited, as to enable the 



CAEE S STEAtfGEE 117 IEELAKD. 9 

reader to delineate for himself, without any further assis- 
tance of the author, the principal features of the Irish 
character ; insomuch that were he to visit Ireland, he would 
find that the previous reading of the hook had made him 
completely at home in that country. The author, however, 
was willing to give a short abstract of his scattered esti- 
mates of Irish qualities, in the following summary. Allow- 
ing that the national character does really comprise these 
properties, we must however think that impartial justice 
would more strongly have marked some of the vices, which 
considerably shade this constellation of fine qualities. 

"With few materials for ingenuity to work with, the 
peasantry of Ireland are most ingenious, and with adequate 
inducements, laboriously indefatigable ; they possess, in general, 
personal beauty and vigour of frame ; they abound with wit 
and sensibility, though all the avenues to useful knowledge are 
closed against them ; they are capable of forgiving injuries, 
and are generous even to their oppressors ; they are sensible of 
superior merit, and submissive to it ; they display natural 
urbanity in rags and penury, are cordially hospitable, ardent 
for information, social in their habits, kind in their disposition, 
in gaiety of heart and genuine humour unrivalled, even in their 
superstition presenting a union of pleasantry and tenderness ; 
warm and constant in their attachments, faithful and incorrup- 
tible in their engagements ; innocent, with the power of sensual 
enjoyment perpetually within their reach ; observant of sexual 
modesty, though crowded within the narrow limits of a cabin ; 
strangers to a crime which reddens the cheek of manhood with 
horror ; tenacious of respect ; acutely sensible of, and easily 
won by kindnesses. Such is the peasantry of Ireland : I appeal 
not to the affections or the humanity, but to the justice of every 
one to whom chance may direct these pages, whether men so 
constituted present no character which a wise government can 
mould to the great purpose of augmenting the prosperity 
of the country, and the happiness of society. "Well might Lord 
Chesterfield, when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, exclaim, ' God 
has done everything for this country, man nothing.' " — Pp. 292, 
293. 

The author gives plenty of specimens of the ignorance, 
the fanaticism, the legends, and the superstition, of the 
lowest rank of the people ; and while we read them, we 
are indignant at the insinuation which occurs, we think 
more than once, against the wisdom or necessity of a 



10 ON TRAVEL-WRITING. 

proselyting spirit on the part of the protestants. The view 
of such a state of the human mind ought to incite all pious 
protestants to move heaven and earth, if it were possible, to 
annihilate that monster of error and corruption which pro- 
duces and sanctions, and will perpetuate in every country 
where it continues to prevail, that degradation of which the 
ignorant Irish are an example. But we cannot help per- 
ceiving, in several passages of the present volume, that our 
sprightly traveller is disposed to regard revelation itself 
as rather a light matter ; we cannot wonder, therefore, at 
his being unconscious how important is the difference 
between an erroneous faith and worship, and the true. 
One of these passages is in page 33 : " In Grod's name let 
the Peruvians derive themselves from the sun ; let the 
Chinese boast of the existence of their empire eight 
thousand years before the creation of the world according 
to our calculation, &c." If a man really holds the opinion 
implied in such expressions as these (the palpable profane- 
ness of which, too, deserves the severest condemnation), we 
ought not to be surprised, that in the same volume or 
chapter the reclaiming of bogs is represented as an object to 
be strenuously promoted, and the reclaiming of miserable 
papists as an object for which it betrays some defect of judg- 
ment to show any great degree of zeal. Yet, on recollection, 
we do a little wonder that Mr. Carr, though he should set 
aside all considerations of purely religious advantage, here 
or hereafter, should not see the importance, in relation to 
political economy, of the lower order being raised to that 
decent state of intellectual and moral improvement which 
there is not the smallest chance of their attaining while 
under the influence of a superstition which governs them by 
besotting them While, however, we condemn such indif- 
ference, especially when indifference affects the character of 
superior wisdom, we equally condemn all corrupt and all 
violent methods of advancing the protestant cause. It is 
not by tempting the conscience of the papist with a pitiful 
sum of money, nor by forcibly interrupting the follies of his 
public worship, nor by making him, for the sake of his 
religion, the subject of continual derision, nor by unneces- 
sarily excluding him from any advantage, that we could wish 
to see genuine Christianity aided in its warfare against that 



cake's steangee in ieeland. 11 

wretched paganism, into which what was once religion is 
found degenerated among all very ignorant papists in every 
country. We cannot but regret that both the civil and 
ecclesiastical rulers of Ireland should have been, for the 
most part, unacquainted with all apostolical methods of 
attempting the conversion of the catholics. And it is me- 
lancholy that the generality of the ostensible ministers of 
religion at present in that country, should be so very little 
either disposed or qualified to promote this great work. "We 
happen to know, that there are some brilliant exceptions to 
this remark, the lustre of whose character, if it cannot pre- 
vail to any distance, yet defines and exposes the obscurity 
which surrounds them. 

Our traveller was attentive to collect any kind of useful 
or amusing information, respecting the several places which 
he visited, and respecting the country at large. He is of 
opinion, that Ireland is of a temperature probably more 
mild and equal than that of any other country. Its unri- 
valled verdure is owing to its western position, where its 
hills are the first interruption to the clouds of the Atlantic, 
in consequence of which the proportion of rainy weather is 
much greater than in England. We presume this circum- 
stance would render it, with the advantage of an equal 
cultivation, more richly productive of almost all the most 
valuable kinds of vegetables ; and Arthur Young, we recol- 
lect, has given it as his opinion, that the soil of Ireland is 
more fertile, acre against acre, than that of this country. 
The agriculture is described as considerably progressive on 
the whole, in spite even of the singularly hapless condition 
of multitudes of its most valuable labourers. 

One of the most curious and interesting parts of the book 
is the account of the interior of the Irish bogs. In digging 
to a great depth in one of them, there were found three 
prostrate woods, one below another, and separated by suc- 
cessive deep strata of earth. Mr. Carr refers the investiga- 
tion of these facts to more philosophic men, apparently 
afraid of the gravity of such inquiries ; and lest even his 
momentary descent into the abyss of a bog-pit should have, 
on him or his readers, any such effect as that of the cave of 
Trophonius, he inspirits himself and them with a good story 
of an " embalmed cobbler," once found, with all his imple- 



12 02T TRAYEL-WEITIKG. 

ments about him, in one of these places. Just in this 
manner a bog-digger takes his glass of whiskey before he 
begins. 

In the narration of the hasty visit to so enchanting a 
place as the lakes of Killarney, we were vexed that any of 
the pages should be occupied about such-a-one Esq., and a 
second Esquire, and a third, and so on. It lessens the 
charm of the description, in the same manner as the crowded 
quarter-sessions in the town spoiled in a degree the pleasure 
of being in the place itself. "We could also have well spared 
the foolish lines of Swift, called "A Gentle Echo on Women." 
We are, on the contrary, delighted with the little anecdote 
of the huntsman, who set free a poor fawn which he had 
caught, because the dam followed him with tones of distress. 
Things like this are in harmony with the exquisite and 
tranquil beauty of the scene. As travellers cannot relate 
all the incidents they witness or hear of in each place which 
they visit, it would be the part of a judicious artist to select 
those which most harmonize with the character of the situa- 
tion. Mr. Carr wants a good deal of improvement in this 
point. Not that we could have the conscience to require 
him to suppress all the humorous anecdotes which he hears, 
but we really wish that, if he should ever visit another place 
like Killarney, he will make such a choice of facts and 
anecdotes, out of the whole mass which comes before him, 
as to aid the emotions of sublimity and beauty which are 
peculiarly appropriate to the place, and which the actual 
observer would be ashamed of himself if he did not feel as 
the prevailing state of his mind, while he remained amidst 
this magnificence of nature. We must not, however, for- 
bear to add, that Mr. Carr does give a very pleasing account 
of this noble scene, notwithstanding the spirit and tone of 
the description are so unfortunately interrupted, when any 
jokes or ludicrous incidents, those literary wild-fowl in the 
pursuit of which our traveller is an incomparable sportsman, 
happen to fly across his view. 

He went to Limerick and Cork, which he describes 
sufficiently in detail. The shocking accounts of the house 
of industry at Limerick, and of the house of industry and 
the old gaol at Cork, will sting the principal inhabitants, we 
hope, through very shame, to the adoption of some more 






CARE'S STEAFGEE IX IEELAJST). 13 

humane, more decent, and more useful regulations. On 
reaching Kilkenny, he found " quite a jubilee bustle in the 
streets." The sacred name of charity was glowing through- 
out the town. It was understood that numbers of human 
beings were " sinking under want and misery ;" and a great 
company of gentlemen, and other people, were convened to 
make a noble effort of pure Christian munificence. And in 
what manner, courteous reader, should you suppose the 
resources were to be supplied for executing the pious design? 
The money was obtained by means of theatricals, which are 
performed during one month every year, with an incalculable 
mischief, beyond all doubt, to the morals of the young 
people. The balance, after deducting the expenses attending 
the performance, is reckoned at about £200. This, as we 
should infer, from another item in the account, is not a 
fourth part of the whole sum paid for entrance into the 
theatre ; but how much of even this smaller sum would 
have been contributed for the charity, if it had not been ex- 
tracted by means of this vain and noxious amusement ? 

Mr. Carr seems to have visited Ireland in the capacity of 
character-painter to the principal inhabitants. And as the 
other class of artists, portrait-painters, are said to keep a 
number of Yenuses, Adonises, Apollos, &c, within sight 
while at their work, so we cannot be so simple as not to 
suspect that this moral painter has played off the same 
device on those who sat, and on us who are called to inspect 
and admire. He meets with a certain General here, at 
Kilkenny, whose generous patriotism may challenge the 
whole empire to produce an equal. In this one instance, 
however, Mr. Carr does not attempt to put the trick upon 
us ; and we are thankful to him for his honesty. He might 
have observed a discreet silence as to the particular proof 
of this unrivalled generosity, and then we should have sup- 
posed this patriotism displayed itself in ; nay, should 

have very deeply pondered all the forms in which it could 
have been displayed, and tried to ascertain which is the 
most generous and useful. Has he built a hospital for 
the lame or blind ? Has he remitted his poor tenants half 
their rents on account of a severe season ? Has he helped 
a great many little farmers to cultivate pieces of waste land? 
Or perhaps he has established large schools for the decent 



14 OK TBAYEL-WRITING. 

education of the brats of the wild Irish. "No, he has done 
something much nobler : he has made, each year, a large 
volunteer subscription, towards defraying the expense of 
carrying on the war. Cunning Mr. Painter ! always per- 
form in this manner ; and we shall not be tempted to the 
sin of reviling you for having taken us in. 

Our readers have often heard of the late Dean Kirwan, 
long celebrated for his charity sermons ; and if eloquence 
be rightly denned the art of persuading, it would appear 
that he must have been one of the greatest orators of 
modern times ; for the sums collected after his sermons, 
amounted in all, as we are informed by Mr. Carr, to nearly 
sixty thousand pounds. For purposes of mischief we have 
often enough had occasion to see that a mere second-rate 
eloquence is sufficient to obtain immensely greater sums; 
and we have observed human nature too long to wonder at 
the fact ; but that a sum like the one here specified should 
be granted to the pleadings of charity, does excite our 
wonder we own, and also our curiosity to know the exact 
nature of the eloquence which had so great an effect. Mr. 
Carr has given several pages of specimens, which he obtain- 
ed with difficulty from a reverend admirer of the Dean, who 
had taken them down in short-hand. But whether it be, 
that the writer gave a cast of expression of his own to the 
sentences of the speaker, or whether there was a defect of 
taste in selecting them, or whether they were accompanied 
and enforced by unequalled graces of delivery, or whether 
the great law of attraction exists in less force between 
money and its owners in Ireland than in other countries, 
or whatever other cause, of which we are not aware, con- 
tributed its influence, we acknowledge that we have some 
difficulty to comprehend how a kind of oratory so very 
dissimilar to the noblest models of eloquence, could produce 
the splendid result. These specimens too much remind us 
of the worst literary qualities of French oratory. The 
language has an artificial pomp, which is carried on, if we 
may so express it, at a certain uniform height above the 
thought, on all occasions ; like the gaudy canopy of some 
effeminate oriental, which is still supported over him, with 
invariable and tiresome ceremony, whether he proceeds or 
stops, sleeps or wakes, rides or condescends to step on the 



CARR S STRANGER IN IRELAND. 15 

ground. The images seem rather to be sought than to 
spring in the mind spontaneously, and to be chosen rather 
for their splendour than their appropriateness. And the 
train of thinking appears to have little of that distinct suc- 
cession of ideas, and that logical articulation, which are 
requisite to impress sound conviction on the understanding. 
— We fear, however, that we begin to descry one capital 
cause of the Dean's success, in something else than the 
literary merits of his oratory : and our readers will hardly 
avoid the same surmise when they read the following 
passage. Expressing his reverence for the man, " however 
he may differ in speculative opinions," who relieves the 
wretched, &c. &c, he proceeds, " Should such a man be ill- 
fated, here or hereafter, may his fate be light ! Should he 
transgress, may his transgressions be unrecorded ! Or if the 
page of his great account be stained with the weakness of 
human nature, or the misfortune of error, may the tears of 
the widow and the orphan, the tears of the wretched he has 
relieved, efface the too rigid and unfriendly characters, and 
blot out the guilt and remembrance of them for ever!" 
Now if an admired preacher, after a pathetic address to the 
passions of a numerous and wealthy auditory, many of whom 
had never accurately studied the doctrines of Christianity, 
could have the courage to proceed forward, and declare to 
them, in the name of heaven, that their pecuniary liberality 
to the claims of distress in general, and especially to the 
case of distress immediately before them, would secure 
them, notwithstanding their past and future unrepented 
and unrelinquished sins, from all danger of divine condemna- 
tion ; intimating also, that, on the extreme and improbable 
supposition that they should be consigned to the region of 
punishment, it would prove so light an affair as to be rather 
a little misfortune than an awful calamity, he might cer- 
tainly persuade them to an ample contribution. But that 
an enlightened minister of a protestant church could have 
the courage to declare or even insinuate the pernicious sen- 
timent, awakens our utmost astonishment. "We think there 
can be no doubt that a certain proportion of the money 
collected after the address, in which such a passage as this 
was seriously uttered, would be paid literally as the atone- 
ment for the past crimes, and as the price of an extended 



16 ON TRAYEL-WK1TING. 

license to repeat them with impunity. If the whole of the 
oration was powerfully persuasive, we cannot fail to attribute 
a large share of the success to that particular part, so sooth- 
ing to apprehension, and so nattering to ignorance and cor- 
ruption. 

In returning towards Dublin, our author made a visit to 
the house of Mr. Grattan ; and he might well feel himself 
flattered by the welcome and the polite attention, which he 
experienced there, and gratified by the mental luxuries which, 
we may believe, scarcely another house could have supplied. 
"We should have been glad to receive some more particular 
information about this distinguished orator, than the 
assurance merely of his being a polite and hospitable man, 
an elegant scholar, and respectable in domestic relations. 
We should have been glad to hear something of his studies, 
his personal habits, his style of talking, or the manner in 
which he appears to meet advancing age. Yet we acknow- 
ledge it is a difficult matter for a transient visitor, who is 
received on terms of formal politeness, to acquire much 
knowledge on some of these particulars, and a matter of 
some delicacy to publish what he might acquire. A number 
of pages are occupied with passages from Mr. Grattan's 
speeches ; some of which extracts, we believe, were supplied 
to Mr. Carr from memory, and therefore are probably given 
imperfectly. On the whole, however, these passages tend 
to confirm the general idea entertained of Mr. Grattan's 
eloquence, as distinguished by fire, sublimity, and an im- 
mense reach of thought. A following chapter is chiefly 
composed of similar extracts from Mr. Curran's speeches ; 
in most of which the conceptions are expressed with more 
lucidness and precision than in the passages from Grattan. 
These specimens did not surprise, though, they delighted us. 
"We have long considered this distinguished counsellor as 
possessed of a higher genius than any one in his profession 
within the British empire. The most obvious difference be- 
tween these two great orators is, that Curran is more versatile, 
rising often to sublimity, and often descending to pleasantry, 
and even drollery; whereas Grattan is always grave and 
austere. They both possess that order of intellectual 
powers, of which the limits cannot be assigned. No con- 
ception could be so brilliant or original, that we should 



FOBBES'S LIFE OF DE. BEATTIE. 17 

confidently pronounce that neither of these men could have 
uttered it. We regret to imagine how many admirable 
thoughts, which such men must have expressed in the lapse 
of many years, have been unrecorded, and are lost for ever. 
We think of these with the same feelings with which we 
have often read of the beautiful or sublime occasional 
phenomena of nature, in past times, or remote regions, 
which amazed and delighted the beholders, but which we 
were destined never to see. 



ON MEMOIR- WRITING. 

An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie,LL.D., late 
Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic, in the Marischal Col- 
lege and University of Aberdeen ; including many of his Original 
Letters. By Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo, Bart. 2 vols. 
1807. 

When a man of humble condition and education, who has 
cultivated literature under the pressure of many disadvan- 
tages, and perhaps distresses, comes before the public with 
a work which has cost him great labour, costs the purchaser 
but a moderate price, and communicates very necessary, or 
at least very useful and seasonable information, he may 
justly claim for the faults of his book the very last degree 
of forbearance which criticism can exercise without surren- 
dering its essential laws. But when a man of fortune, who 
has had a liberal education, who has been intimate with many 
of the most distinguished individuals, both in literature and 
rank, for forty years, who would indignantly disown any 
wish to raise money on the grave of his friend, who knows 
that an ample memoir of that friend has already been given 
to the pnblic, and who adopts the easiest of all possible modes 
of making np volumes, publishes a splendid work, he will 
naturally disdain to be nnder any obligation to the clemency 
of critics. We shall, therefore, feel perfectly at liberty to 
express our honest opinion on these volumes ; and laying 
out of the question all the excellences which the author 



1 



18 ON MEMOIB-WBITING. 

doubtless possesses, we shall consider him simply in the 
character which he has assumed in appearing before the 
public. 

We cannot but earnestly wish that the present epidemical 
disease in literature, the custom of making very large books 
about individuals, may in due time find, like other diseases, 
some limit to its prevalence, and at length decline and dis- 
appear. What is to become of readers, if the exit of every 
man of some literary eminence, is thus to be followed by a 
long array of publications, beginning with duodecimos, 
extending into octavos, and expanded at last into a battalion 
of magnificent quartos ? This is reviving to some purpose 
the Theban method of attacking in the form of a wedge; 
and we do hope the curiosity, diligence, and patience of 
readers will at last be completely put to the rout. 

This swelling fungous kind of biography confounds all the 
right proportions in which the claims and the importance oi 
individuals should be arranged, and exhibited to the atten- 
tion of the public. When a private person, whose life was 
marked by few striking varieties, is thus brought forward in 
two volumes quarto, while many an individual of modern 
times, who influenced the fate of nations, has been confined 
to a sixth part of the compass, it reminds us too much of 
that political rule by which Old Sarum, consisting of one 
house, is represented by two illustrious senators, while many 
very populous towns are not represented at all. If a pro- 
fessor of a college is to lie thus magnificently in state, what 
must be done for such a man as Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox ? And 
still more, what must be done after the exit of some persons 
who are at present acting their part in human affairs ? The 
French Encyclopedic will be in point of bulk, but a horn- 
book in comparison of the stupendous hosts of folios, which 
must come forth after the departure of Bonaparte and 
Talleyrand; provided, that is to say, that sufficient materials, 
in the way of paper, ink, &c, can then be obtained where- 
withal to furnish out this mighty blazon of monumental 
history. And by the way, the makers of paper will do well 
to take the hint from us, and have their warehouses ready 
for the event which will happen sooner or later in their 
favour, though to the confusion and dismay of the most 
courageous and indefatigable readers. As to reviewers, the 



FOKBES's LIFE OE DR. BEATTIE. 19 

most industrious and incorruptible of all the servants of the 
public, they will then have the plea of absolute necessity for 
resorting to the practice of which they have sometimes been 
most unrighteously accused — that of reviewing books without 
inspecting them. 

The method of constructing large biographical works out 
of an assemblage of letters, with here and there a page and 
paragraph between for the purpose of connexion and expla- 
nation, has plenty of plausible recommendations. There is 
an appearance of great modesty ; the compiler makes no 
claims to the honours of authorship ; all he is anxious for, is 
to display in the simplest manner, the merits, talents, and 
pursuits of his friend. That friend is thus made to present 
himself to us in his own person, and his familiar correspon- 
dence will disclose to us the internal qualities of the man 
incomparably better, as it is so often repeated to us, than any 
formal development of a biographer. The series of such 
letters, continued through half the length of life or more, 
will show the gradual progress and improvement of the mind. 
If some of them are trivial or common,, in subject or style, 
even the smallest things said and written, by eminent persons 
have their value ; it is pleasing to observe how great minds 
sometimes unbend; and consoling to see in how many respects 
they are like ourselves. These are recommendations proper 
to be mentioned to the public ; but there are others of which 
the biographer can silently take the advantage to himself, 
besides that extreme facility of performance which we have 
hinted already. One of these is impunity. There is little to 

| be attacked in such a book, except what its author has not 
written ; or if he is directly censured for introducing some of 
the things written by the person who is the subject of the 
book, the partiality of friendship is a plea always at hand, and 
a feeling always accounted amiable. Another is a fair oppor- 
tunity for the biographer to introduce himself very often, and 
without the direct form of egotism; since the probability is, 
that not a few of the letters were written to him, and contain 

| of course, many very handsome things. His modesty pro- 
fesses to hesitate about their insertion ; but yet they must be 
inserted, because they show in so striking a light, the kind 

| disposition of his friend. 

Such handsome things, we have no doubt, were amply 



20 OK MEHOIE-WEITING. 

deserved by Sir W. Forbes, and even those more than hand- 
some things, which he informs us he has omitted in printing 
the letters. The indications of a sincere affection for Dr. 
Beattie, are very conspicuous ; and we attribute it to a real 
partiality of friendship, that he has made this work much 
larger than we think can be of service to the instruction of 
the public, or the memory of his friend. The memory of that 
was unquestionably too dear to him to have permitted the in- 
sertion of one letter or line, which he did not sincerely believe 
would give the same impression of the writer, which Sir 
William himself was happy to cherish. It is, therefore, unfor- 
tunate, that the reader should feel, at the close of the book, 
that he would have been more pleased with both Dr. Beattie 
and his biographer, if it had come to a close much sooner. 

The parts written by Sir W. Forbes, are in a style per- 
spicuous, correct, and classical ; generally relating however 
to particulars which require no great effort of thought. 
Many of these particulars are most unnecessarily intro- 
duced, and lead into details which are extremely tiresome, 
not excepting even the analysis of Dr. Beattie' s writings. 
It had surely been enough to have stated in a few sen- 
tences, the objects of his several performances, and then, 
if the reader deemed those objects of importance, he would 
take an opportunity of consulting the books themselves. 
The notes contain a large assemblage of biographical and 
genealogical records. "When a new acquaintance of Dr. 
Beattie is mentioned, it is deemed proper for us to be in- 
formed of- his parentage, his connexions, his residence, his 
offices, his accomplishments. In several instances a letter 
of little interest is preceded by a long history of still less, 
for the purpose of making that letter intelligible, by detail- 
ng some transaction to which it relates ; as in that part of 
i;he book referring to the union of two colleges in jlberdeen. 
Sir "William is sufficiently a citizen of the world, we have no 
doubt, to wish his book may be read in each part of the 
kingdom ; why was he not enough a citizen of the world, to 
be aware how small a portion of the kingdom can feel any 
concern in this piece of history ? If he thought all these 
matters would magnify the importance of his principal 
subject, he is so far mistaken, that the reader is tempted to 
quarrel with that subject, on account of this crowd of 



EORBES'S LIFE OE DR. BEATTIE. 21 

appendages. The reader feels in this case, just as Sir 
William would do, if some one of his friends of high rank, 
whom he would be very glad to receive in an easy quiet way, 
would never come to visit him for a day or two, without 
bringing also a large troop of footmen, postilions, cooks, 
nursery-maids, and other inhabitants of his house, kitchen, 
and stables. "We will not suppose it was his formal purpose 
to make a very large book. Nor could it be his ambition to 
display writing talents, as the subjects would ha^e been 
unfortunately selected for such a purpose ; and indeed we 
do not accuse him of ostentation as an author. Perhaps it 
is no great vice if he exhibits a little of it as a man. But 
we have felt a degree of surprise that he should not seem 
to be aware of the impression which would be made on the 
minds of his readers, by his adding, at the end of almost 
every note relating to one or another distinguished personage 
of Dr. Beattie's acquaintance, "And I also had the honour 
of his friendship." This occurs so often, that we have felt 
that kind of irritation, which is excited when a man, that 
we wish to respect, is for the tenth or twentieth time doing 
or repeating a foolish thing in order to intimate his import- 
ance. We persuade ourselves that this feeling arises from 
our right perception of what would have preserved Sir 
William's dignity ; perhaps, however, we deceive ourselves, 
and the feeling springs from envy of his high fortune, for 
we doubt if we were ever summoned to wait on a man of 
such extensive and illustrious connexions before. 

Previously to the insertion of any of Dr. Beattie's letters, 
a succinct account is given of his life, from his birth, of 
humble, but respectable parents, till his twenty-fifth year, 
when he was appointed professor of moral philosophy and 
logic in Marischal College, after having passed through the 
offices of parish-clerk and schoolmaster in the neighbourhood 
of his native place, and assistant in a respectable school in 
Aberdeen. This rapid advancement, by means of merit 
alone, is in itself sufficient to evince both uncommon ability 
and industry. We are informed that the passion and the 
talent for poetry were very early awakened in his mind, and 
in one of his letters to a friend, in a later period of his life, 
he acknowledges that his " Minstrel" is substantially a 
description of what had been his own mental character in 



22 ON MEMOIR-WRITING. 

his youth, A prematurity of faculties appears conspicuous 
through the whole course of his earlier life, and when he 
was fixed at Aberdeen, those faculties were extended to the 
utmost, in the society of a number of distinguished men, 
such as Campbell, B-eid, Gerard, Gregory, and many others, 
with whom he familiarly associated, and from that time 
maintained an intimate friendship as loDg as the respective 
parties lived. An entertaining account is given of these 
literary friends forming themselves into a society for philo- 
sophical discussion, to which the common people gave the 
denomination of the "Wise Club, in which the first ideas 
were started of some of those theories which were afterwards 
unfolded at large, in books that have obtained a high rank 
in the philosophic school. It is pleasing to observe, that 
the friendship among these scholars and philosophers was 
very cordial, and not withered by that envy and jealousy 
which the philosophic character has often enough failed to 
preclude, when rival talents have created a comparison and 
balance of reputation. Dr. Beattie retained his station at 
Aberdeen all the rest of his life, which was diversified only 
by his family connexions and cares, his publications, his 
friendships, and his occasional visits to London. A piece 
of information is now and then interposed by the biogra- 
pher ; but these circumstances are chiefly unfolded in Dr. 
Beatfcie's correspondence with Dr. Blacklock, SirW. Forbes, 
Mr. Arbuthnot, Mrs. Montague, the Bishop of London, the 
Duchess of Grordon, and several other friends. 

From the time of Beattie' s establishment at Aberdeen, 
till within a very few years of the end of his life, a period of 
forty years, he prosecuted study and the business of author- 
ship with indefatigable industry and ardour. And in passing 
along the series of letters, our admiration is repeatedly 
excited by the variety of attainments, the extent of accurate 
reading, and the quantity of composition, for which he was 
able to rescue time enough from his professional employ- 
ments, wide correspondence, intercourse with society, and 
domestic sorrows. A more instructive example is not often 
displayed of what resolute application may accomplish, when 
supported by a very warm interest in the business in which 
it is exerted. But at the same time a warm passion for 
literature, especially when a man writes, as well as reads, is 






TORSES' S LIFE OE DR. BEATTIE. 23 

apt to produce a species of extravagance, which, to people 
who are not in the same employment, appears excessively 
ludicrous. A cork-cutter, or a maker of nails, or pins, or 
pegs for shoes, who quietly betakes himself to his work every 
morning, and goes soberly through it as a matter of course, 
would be first surprised, and next diverted to laughter, to 
see the importance, and earnestness, and solemnity, put on 
by an author and a poet, while occupied about the making of 
a line, the adjusting of a syllable, the changing of an epithet, 
the measuring of dactyls, or the lengthening or shortening 
of a paragraph ; and by the self-complacency, the air of high 
achievement, and the congratulations of scholars, when he 
has performed this great duty well. Even the detail of the 
graver and more philosophic labours of writing cannot be 
listened to long, when the writers are to give the account of 
them, without the loss of gravity ; though it is true that the 
gravity which is lost in laughing, may be quickly resumed 
for censuring. 

The letters of authors, from Pope's time, down to the 
present instance, betray them to this ridicule and this 
censure. There is no end of the amplifications and re- 
petitions about my book, my poems, my ode, my epigram, 
my translations, my corrections, my new edition, my next 
production. I have taken great pains to amend the harsh- 
ness of the tenth or fifteenth line; I have excluded one 
stanza, and inserted two ; I flatter myself that the objection 
which has been made to it by the public will now be obvi- 
ated; I have been particularly struck with a coincidence 

between a passage in my essay, and one in Mr. 's 

treatise ; I can prove that mine was not borrowed ; I have 
written twenty pages of a dissertation on the subject we 
were lately conversing upon; you know I do not think 
highly of my own talents ; I am inclined to think this will 
be a decisive performance however ; my last work is getting 
much into vogue as I am informed. I hear the critics are 
at work ; I defy them ; your approbation would sustain my 

self-complacency, if they were all to condemn me ; Mr. 

is very angry, but I think he will not attack ; the work has 
produced a great sensation; I am told that Dr. E., and 
Bishop E., and Lord Gr. are delighted with it ; I have just 
received a letter from Lady H., who pays me such compli- 



24 ON MEMOIR-WRITING. 

ments as I will not repeat to you ; she tells me that Mr. J. 
is wonderfully pleased and is very anxious to see me, 
&c, &c. 

If authors may be allowed to expatiate on these matters, 
and in this manner, in their communications with their 
intimate literary friends, the letters ought, for the sake of 
the respectability of the writers, to be confined to those 
friends alone. Should there be any exception, it would be 
in the instance where some important principle of criticism 
is discussed in immediate connexion with any articles of the 
author's own performances, so that his remarks respecting 
his compositions, shall become instructive lessons on the art 
of composition in general. But this is' rarely the case in 
those parts of the letters before us, which are occupied with 
a multitude of minutiae about the writer's own studies. "We 
therefore think, that many of these letters convict Sir W. 
Forbes of utterly mistaking the proper method of recalling 
his departed friend, with dignity, into the public consider- 
ation. 

The first publication of Dr. Beattie was a volume of 
juvenile poems, in a new edition of which he omitted several 
pieces which his biographer regrets to lose ; especially a long 
Ode to Peace, • which is inserted in the appendix to the 
present work. We think that Dr. Beattie showed more 
discernment in wishing to let it sink into oblivion, than 
Sir "William in fishing it up again. The term Chaos occurs 
in the first stanza, and would have been a singularly appro- 
priate title for the whole ode. It is not a description of 
chaos, but the very thing itself; a mass of ill-defined and 
enormous images ; a confusion of crude elements, dashing, 
rumbling, howling, and fighting all in the dark. 

The " Minstrel" is the production of a maturer age, and 
will always be read with delight by persons endowed with a 
taste for nature, with tenderness of feeling, and. elevated 
imagination. The alleged deficiency of incident would 
hardly appear to be a fault, in any work so rich in refined 
sentiment and beautiful description. 

An ample portion of the first volume is occupied with the 
project, the completion, the publication, and the success, of the 
"Essay on Truth." This is no place for the examination of the 
principles of that celebrated book, which, beyond all doubt, was 










TOEBES'S LIFE OP DE. BEATTIE. 25 

written with the worthiest intention, and was of considerahle 
use at the time, in exposing some of the most obvious ex- 
travagances of the sceptical philosophy, which was carried 
to the very limit of sense by Mr. Hume, and pushed beyond 
it into the most ridiculous folly, by some of his weak 
admirers and wicked followers. The book will be an accep- 
table resting-place to those who are averse to the labour of 
abstract thinking, and an asylum to those who are terrified 
by the consequences sometimes seen to result from attempt- 
ing to prosecute such thinking beyond the power and reach 
of the human faculties. But we cannot expect that philo- 
sophers will ever be satisfied with this doctrine of common 
sense. They will, we think justly, assert that there is no 
boundary which can fairly limit and close the investigation 
of truth on this side the region of metaphysics. The ulti- 
mate principles must be there, whether they can be found 
there or not; and thither the investigation will absolutely 
go, in spite of every contrivance to satisfy and determine it 
at any nearer point. How far it shall go into that world of 
abstraction, before its progress shall be stopped by humility 
or despair, will depend on the strength of a merely philosophic 
mind, and on the discretion of a pious one. 

The author's expectations of the success of his essay were 
not sanguine, and therefore surprise heightened his satis- 
faction when it was received, if many of these letters do not 
exaggerate, with such delight, as if Christianity and true 
philosophy had been waiting, in the awful crisis of existence 
or extinction, for its appearance. It seems to have been 
welcomed like a convoy of provisions in a famishing garrison, 
by many high characters in church and state, whose exul- 
tation would really seem to betray the impression which 
their talents had not prevented Mr. Hume from making on 
their fears. The most flattering attentions thickened on 
Dr. Beattie within the circle of his personal acquaintance ; 
and he received from England many letters abounding with 
expressions of admiration and offers of friendship, on the 
strength of which he was induced to make a visit to London. 
At this period of the history, he is presented to us in a 
different point of view from that of the scholar, poet, 
and philosopher. "We are fairly told, though with much care 
to qualify the homeliness of the confession, that it was need* 



26 OS MEMOIB- WHITING. 

ful to Dr. Beattie to eat, which, we have often had occasion 
to be sorry that philosophers, including reviewers, should be 
under the necessity of doing. The means of subsistence 
for himself and family were confined to the small stipend of 
his professorship, and the emolument that might accrue from 
his publications ; of which he received a comfortable sample 
and assurance in the fifty guineas paid him for his " Essay 
on Truth,' 1 which had only cost him the labour of four years. 
His many generous and opulent friends in Scotland and 
England were aware of his circumstances, and sincerely re- 
gretted them. A comparatively small annual sum would 
have given a man of his moderate wants and habits, the 
feeling of independence; and a strong and concurrent 
sentiment of anxiety was awakened, in the minds of a 
greater number of noblemen and gentlemen than we can 
charge our memories with, to find out any means of ob- 
taining for him this advantage. They lamented the duty, 
imposed on them by their high rank, of expending so many 
thousands on their splendid establishments and their hounds ; 
while the illustrious defender of truth, and their dear friend, 
was in danger of something bordering on indigence. Bat 
notwithstanding these unavoidable necessities of their own 
condition, they would have been most happy to have made 
some effort in his favour, had not a fatal obstacle stood in 
the way. That obstacle was delicacy; it might hurt his 
feelings to insinuate to him the offer of any thing which 
they themselves regarded with such a generous scorn as 
money. With sincere sorrow, therefore, they were reduced 
to wait, and see what fortune might do for him. At last 
Mrs. Montague, much to her shame, violated this delicacy 
by informing him, that she would take upon herself to mend 
his condition, if a slight expectation which had begun to 
spring up from another quarter, should fail to be realized. 
This expectation was realized not long after, and his illus- 
trious friends rejoiced in the double good fortune, that their 
delicacy was saved, and his purse was filled. Sir W. Eorbes 
one of those friends, and an opulent banker in Edinburgh 
records this whole affair in the most honest simplicity o: 
heart, just as we have done ourselves. 

This brings us, as we conceive, to the middle of ou] 
song — 



EORBES"S LIEE OE DB. BEATTIE. 27 

Now heavily comes on in clouds the day, 

The great, th' important day, big with the fate 

But it was a much better fate than that of our old friend 
Cato. After many preparatory solemnities, Dr. Beattie was 
introduced to their Majesties ; but a reverential awe forbids 
us to intrude our remarks on what passed in the royal 
sanctuary. We wait near the entrance till the bold adven- 
turer returns, to display his acquisitions and his honours, a 
kind of spolia opima, similar to what Johnson, another great 
literary hero, had carried off sometime before, and often, as 
his historian tells, triumphantly exhibited to the wonder and 
envy of his numerous acquaintance. At Dr. Beattie's 
return, however, we find him so beset with a crowd and mob 
of zealous friends, that we are glad to make our escape from 
the bustle, and can only say, that at length he went back to 
Scotland with an annuity of £200. Highly appreciating 
the royal bounty, he ever afterwards testified the liveliest 
gratitude ; and his attachment was naturally increased by 
the yery flattering marks of friendship which he received 
from their Majesties on subsequent occasions. 

During this visit he was introduced to the distinguished 
persons whose letters are here intermixed with his own. 
Our remarks on the whole collection must be brief and 
general. Together with a great deal that ought to have been 
omitted, as neither having any intrinsic value, nor supplying 
any additional illustration of the Doctor's qualities, they 
contain much good sense, easy writing, and frank disclosure 
of character. There is also a respectable share of true cri- 
ticism ; but we own there are not many passages that appear 
to us to reach the depths of either criticism or philosophy, 
which indeed are the same. The variety of the descriptions 
generally bear the marks of the poet and the man of taste. 
The references to subjects of domestic tenderness present 
him in so amiable a light that we deeply sympathize with 
the melancholy which accompanied every recollection of the 
state of his family ; and it must have been inevitable to a 
man like him, to have that recollection almost continually in 
his mind. The direct allusions, however, are not often re- 
peated, and with much propriety Sir "William has no doubt 
omitted many paragraphs relating to the subject. 

Dr. Beattie's style is singularly free and perspicuous, and 



28 ON MEMOIB-WEITING. 

adapted in the highest degree to the purpose of familiar lec- 
turing to his pupils ; but for an author we should deem it 
something less than elegant, and something less than ner- 
vous. In early life he took great pains to imitate Addison, 
whose style he always recommended and admired. But 
Addison's style is not sufficiently close and firm for the use 
of a philosopher, and as to the exquisite shades of his colours, 
they can perhaps never be successfully imitated. "We were 
rather surprised to find the enthusiastic admirer of Addison 
preferring the old Scotch version of the Psalms to every 
other ; and the opinion of so respectable a judge put our 
national partialities in some degree of fear. But we soon 
recovered our complacency in our own venerable Sternhold 
and Hopkins, who, in point of harmony and elegance, rich- 
ness and majesty, and all the other high attributes of poetry, 
have surely beaten their northern rivals. 

In many parts of the letters, we are constrained to per- 
ceive a degree of egotism inconsistent with the dignity of a 
philosopher or a man. The writer seems unwilling to lose 
any opportunity of recounting the attentions, the compli- 
ments, the testimonies of admiration, which he has received 
from individuals or the public. The complacency with which 
he expatiates on himself and his performances, is but imper- 
fectly disguised by the occasional and too frequent profes- 
sions of holding himself and those performances cheap. 
This is a very usual but unsuccessful expedient, with those 
who have reflection enough to be sensible that they have 
rather too much ostentation, but not resolution enough to 
restrain themselves from indulging in it. It will unTuckily 
happen sometimes, that these professions of self-disesteem 
will be brought into direct contrast with certain things that 
betray a very different feeling. There is an instance of this 
in the second volume (p. 173), where the expression, " you 
have paid too much attention to my foolish remarks," is 
printed in the same page with this other expression, " poor 
Mr. Locke." 

Another conspicuous feature of this correspondence is 
the gross flattery interchanged between Dr. Beattie and his 
friends. The reader is sometimes tempted to suspect, that 
he has been called to be present at a farce where the princi- 
pal persons are flattering for a wager. During the perusal 



FORBES's LIFE OF DR. BEATTIE. 29 

we have been obliged again and again to endeavour to drive 
out of our imagination the idea of a meeting of friends in 
China, where the first mandarin bows to the floor, and then 
the second mandarin bows to the floor, and then the first 
mandarin bows again to the floor, and thus they go on till 
friendship is satisfied or patience tired. In his letters to 
one individual, a duchess, the Doctor felt it his duty to take 
notice of her person as well as abilities and virtues. But we 
should conclude that all the other gentlemen of her acquain- 
tance must have been very sparing of compliments to her 
beauty, if she could be gratified by such as those of the 
professor. 

If it is not gross flattery that abounds in these letters, we 
have the more cause to be sorry for having come into the 
world some years later than Dr. Beattie and Sir "W. Forbes. 
There have been better times than the present, if during the 
main part of this correspondence, e^ery gentleman was an 
accomplished scholar, every person of opulence and power 
was humble and charitable, and every prelate an apostle. 
Astrsea must have left the earth much later than report has 
commonly given out. 

The letters of the Doctor's friends constitute the smaller, 
yet a considerable proportion of the series. Those of Mrs. 
Montague are greatly superior to the rest, and excel in some 
respects those of Dr. Beattie himself. The general praise of 
good language is due to the whole collection. It may ap- 
pear a caprice of our taste to dislike the frequent recurrence 
of the words credit and creditable. " Highly creditable to 
his understanding and his heart," " does equal credit to his 
talents and his character," &c, &c, are phrases returning 
so often, that they become disagreeable intruders on the eye 
and the ear. The sameness of phrase is however strikingly 
relieved by novelty of application, in a letter of condolence 
from a learned prelate to Dr. Beattie, after the death of his 
second son. (Vol. II., p. 309.) The mourning father is told 
that, " The faith, the piety, the fortitude, displayed by so 
young a man, on so awful an occasion, do infinite credit to 
him." As if dying were a matter of exhibition, to be per- 
formed handsomely to please the spectators. 

Among the sensible and entertaining pieces of criticism 
to be found in the Doctor's letters, we might refer to his 



30 ON MEMOIR-WEITING. 

observations on the novel of Clarissa, Ossian's Poems, the 
Nouvelle Eloise, Metastasio, Tasso, Csesar's Commentaries, 
the diction of the Orientals, and the Henriade. In con- 
nexion with the subjects of criticism, are the curious 
remarks on the character of Petrarch, and the truly fantastic 
picture of Lord Monboddo. A selection of about one-third 
of the materials composing these volumes, would make a 
verj interesting and instructive book. 

Though we have complained of the mass of extraneous 
matter, yet some of the facts incidentally related, are such 
as ought not to have been lost. The account of the excel- 
lent lady, whose husband, with all his property, perished at 
sea, and who was niece to the once celebrated Mrs. Catharine 
Cockburn, would be very interesting, were we not convinced 
from the internal evidence, that it is most incorrectly stated. 
According to this account she lived till that late period when 
Mrs. Montague settled on her an annuity for the short re- 
mainder of her life, in great penury ; insomuch that it was a 
matter of wonder how she contrived to preserve a tolerable 
appearance in respect of clothing. Now this must be an 
utter mistake or misrepresentation, for we are told that she 
was well known to many persons of eminent rank, and in par- 
ticular was highly esteemed by the Duchess of Grordon, the 
possessor, as we learn from Dr. Beattie, of every beneficent 
virtue, as well as every charm under heaven. The transport 
of surprise and gratitude displayed by the aged sufferer, on 
being informed what Mrs. Montague had done, and which 
the narrative of Dr. Beattie and Sir W. Porbes would 
really leave us to attribute to her having never experienced 
much bounty before, was owing unquestionably to a very 
different cause. It was her benevolent joy that a part of 
the ample supplies which she had received from her former 
munificent patrons and patronesses, and especially the 
Duchess, might now be applied to the support of other de- 
serving persons in distress, "While remarking on the error 
of the statement, it strikes us as equally singular and meri- 
torious, that we, who were never honoured with a smile or 
nod from a peer or peeress — that we, in our obscure garrets, 
labouring at our occupation during the day by the few 
glimpses of light that can steal through windows almost 
stopped up with old hats and bits of board to keep out the 






FORBES S LIFE OF DR. BEATTIE. 31 

rain, and during the night by the lustre of farthing candles 
— should be more solicitous about the reputation of people 
of high rank, than Sir W. Forbes, the intimate friend of so 
many of them, appears in this instance to have been. "We 
hope that this our virtue, in default of other recompense, 
will be its own reward ; and we trust it will be a pledge, that, 
whatever culpable dispositions may belong to reviewers, 
they feel no inclination to speak evil of dignities. 

We could have wished to entertain an unmingled respect 
for the moral habits and religious views of Dr. Beattie ; and 
it is an ungracious thing to detect any signs of a moral 
latitude inconsistent with the religion which he wished to 
defend. One of these signs is his passion for the theatre. 
Who would ever dream, on reading the following passage, 
that it could have been written by a zealous friend of the 
religion of Christ ? 

" I rejoice to hear that Mr. Garrick is so well as to be able to 
appear in tragedy. It is in vain to indulge one's self in un- 
availing complaints, otherwise I could rail by the hour at Dame 
Fortune, for placing me beyond the reach of that arch-magician, 
as Horace would have called him. I well remember, and I 
think I can never forget, how he once affected me in Macbeth, 
and made me almost throw myself over the front seat of the 
two-shilling gallery. I wish I had another opportunity of 
risking my neck and nerves in the same cause. To fall by the 
hands of Garrick and Shakspere would ennoble my memory to 
all generations. To be serious, if all actors were like this one, 
I do not think it would be possible for a person of sensibility to 
outlive the representation of Hamlet, Lear, or Macbeth ; which, 
by the bye, seems to suggest a reason for that mixture of 
comedy and tragedy of which our great poet was so fond, and 
which the Frenchified critics think such an intolerable outrage 
both against nature and decency. Against nature, it is no 
outrage at all ; the inferior officers of a court know very little of 
what passes among kings and statesmen ; and may be very 
merry when their superiors are very sad ; and if so, the Porter's 
Soliloquy in Macbeth may be a very just imitation of nature. 
And I can never accuse of indecency the man, who, by the 
introduction of a little unexpected merriment, saves me from a 
disordered head or a broken heart. If Shakspere knew his own 
powers, he must have seen the necessity of tempering his tragic 
rage by a mixture of comic ridicule ; otherwise there was some 
danger of his running into greater excesses than deer-stealing, 



32 ON MEMOIB-WUITING. 

by spotting with the lives of all the people of taste in these 
realms. Other playwrights must conduct their approaches to 
the human heart with the utmost circumspection, a single false 
step may make them lose a great deal of ground ; but Shakspere 
made his way to it at once, and could make his audience burst 
their sides this moment, and break their hearts the next. I 
have often seen Ham]et performed by the underlings of the 
theatre, but none of these seemed to understand what they were 
about. Hamlet's character, though perfectly natural, is so very 
uncommon, that few, even of our critics, can enter into it. 
Sorrow, indignation, revenge, and consciousness of his own irre- 
solution, tear his heart ; the peculiarity of his circumstances 
often obliges him to counterfeit madness, and the storm of 
passions within him often drives him to the verge of real 
madness. This produces a situation so interesting, and a con- 
duct so complicated, as none but Shakspere could have had the 
courage to describe, and none but Garrick will ever be able 
to exhibit. Excuse this rambling ; I know you like the subject ; 
and for my part I like it so much, that when I once get in, I am 
not willing to find my way out of it." — Yol. I. pp. 218 — 220 

We may also be allowed to ask, how it consisted with 
that full approbation which he uniformly avowed of the 
Established church of England, to spend the Sabbath in a 
convivial party with Sir J. Reynolds, Baretti, and other 
persons, some of whom would most likely have laughed at 
him, had he hinted any recollection of the duty of public 
worship ? This was not a singular offence with him. 

Religious opinions, in the strict sense, are scarcely dis- 
closed in any part of the work, except occasionally by 
implication, as in the following sentence : " The virtue of 
even the best man must, in order to appear meritorious at 
the great tribunal, have something added to it which man 
cannot bestow." "We were sincerely grieved to meet with 
so grand a mistake of the nature of Christianity. On the 
whole, we fear Dr. Beattie conformed in his moral principles 
too much to the fashion of reputable men of the world, and 
in his religious ones too much to the fashion of scholars and 
philosophers This fear was in no degree obviated, by our 
finding the first of his precepts to a young minister of the 
gospel to be exactly this, "Read the classics day and night." 
We are forcibly reminded, by contrast, of the injunctions 
given to Timothy by the prince of the apostles. 

We question, too, whether the Doctor, in another instance, 



FORBES's LIFE OF DE. BEATTIE, 33 

acquitted himself very uprightly as a "soul-doctor," (for thus 
he terms himself) ; we refer to his prescription for a noble 
duchess,* whose name occurs very often within these pages. 
There was a period, we find, when that lady was disposed to 
solitude and reflection ; one of those awful periods at which 
the destiny of an individual seems oscillating in suspense, 
and a small influence of advice, or circumstance, has the 
power to decide it. How Dr. Beattie used this intrusted 
moment, may be seen from the following admonitions : — 

" Seasons of recollection may be useful ; but when one begins 
to find pleasure in sighing over Young's ' Night Thoughts' in a 
corner, it is time to shut the book, and return to the company. . 
. . Such things may help to soften a rugged mind ; and I 
believe I might have been the better for them. But your Grace's 
heart is already ' too feelingly alive to each fine impulse ;' and, 
therefore, to you I would recommend gay thoughts, cheerful 
books, and sprightly company." — Yol. II. pp. 28, 29. 

We are doubtful which most to admire, the rigid friend- 
ship of the adviser, or the notorious docility of the pupil ; 
the degree in which they both exemplify the predominance 
of a devotional spirit, appears to be nearly equal. 

Here our remarks must be concluded. The closing part 
of Dr. Beattie' s life is as affecting as any tragedy we ever 
read, and will, appeal irresistibly to the sympathy of every 
reader who can reflect or feel. His health had been ruined 
by intense study, and the hopeless grief arising from the 
circumstance already mentioned. Under the loss of his 
nearest relative by what was far worse than her death, his 
eldest son, an admirable youth, became the object of un- 
bounded affection. At the age of twenty-two he died. A 
few years after, his remaining son, not equally interesting 
with the other, but yet an excellent young man, died also. 
The afflicted parent manifested a resignation to the divine 
will which cannot be surpassed. But nature sunk by degrees 
into a state, from which his friends could not but congratu- 
late his deliverance by death. 

* Jane, Duchess of Gordon, daughter of Sir "W. Maxwell, of 
Mouteith, Bart. 






34 



THOUGHTS ON AFFECTATION. 

Addressed chiefly to Young People. 8vo. 1807. 

The anonymous writer of this book is a lady, who in a 
simple and dignified manner assigns herself to the elderly 
class. With us she loses nothing by this confession; for 
the gallantry of reviewers is different from that of almost all 
other men. We like an aged woman who entertains us with 
sense and knowledge, ten times better than a young one 
who would divert us with follies ; and our prime favourites, 
the Muses themselves, had lost all the light attractions of 
juvenility, long enough, we presume, before we had the 
honour to be introduced to their acquaintance. 

If the present writer had not given us the information, we 
should nevertheless have been quite certain she is not young. 
Her very extensive knowledge of characters and manners, 
would have soon discovered to us a person long accustomed 
to observe the world with that impartial, sober attention, in 
which the judgment is no longer the dupe of fancy and 
giddy passions. Her acquaintance with mankind has 
extended to various classes, and especially, as it appears, to 
a great number of the wealthy and fashionable ; and she has 
exemplified the several kinds of affectation by many 
instances from real life, so various and so appropriately 
introduced, that they form no small part of the value of the 
book. As a matter of course, she avoids mentioning the 
names of any of the persons whose conduct supplied these 
anecdotes ; but notwithstanding this observance of the rules 
of benevolence and decorum, we have sometimes been 
apprehensive that, since it is likely some of the persons 
whose follies she has recorded will read her work, she may 
excite a resentment which, in some possible instance, may 
occasion her a little exercise of her philosophy. We have 
repeatedly imagined some high-spirited dame or gentleman 
throwing down the book with indignation, and exclaiming, 
" This impudent writer means me ; I know who she is now 
I said something like this at such a time, and I remember 






THOUGHTS ON AFFECTATION. 35 

this Mrs. was there; 'pon my honour I will be 

revenged, that I will. Such scandalous impertinence ! 
And so this civil-speaking, demure-faced hypocrite makes 
her visits to write down everybody's faults and what every- 
body says, and then puts it in a moralizing, canting book, to 
make herself look wiser than her neighbours." If she is 
secure of impunity, we have certainly reason to be pleased 
that she has taxed, for contributions to her book, so many 
individuals, families, and companies, who little imagined 
that they were uttering speeches that were to be printed for 
the purpose of enforcing moral and prudential instructions. 

Our author uses the term Affectation, not in the confined 
sense in which it frequently occurs, as descriptive of merely 
a particular fault in manners ; but in its widest signification, 
as applicable to all assumed false appearances, in the whole 
social conduct of mankind. And her extensive and vigilant 
observation has detected a greater variety of modes of affec- 
tation, than we had apprehended to be in existence. These 
she has arranged in two parallel lists of opposites ; as, 
Courage — Cowardice: Modesty and Innocence— Boldness 
and Impudence, &c. &c, making her remarks on them in a 
series of pairs, in each of which two opposites are placed 
immediately together. A somewhat too systematical ad- 
herence to this plan has led her into an impropriety, as she 
herself is partly sensible, at the section on the affectation of 
the virtue of Truth, Taking this term in the sense of 
veracity, she acknowledges there is no opposite affectation 
to be found, as no one ever laboured or wished to sustain the 
character of a liar. Taken in the sense of sincerity or plain 
speaking (and, by the way, her remarks have very much 
confused this sense with the former), it is surely opposed to 
something quite different from bluntness, which she has 
assigned as its opposite ; since bluntness is only this very 
same plain-speaking, carried to such an excess as to become 
rudeness. 

A benevolent intention appears to pervade the book, 
though it is throughout a satire on society and on human 
nature. Her censures are often in the plainest style of 
moral simplicity and seriousness, while her descriptions are 
ludicrous, .And we can really believe that she has been 
more grieved than diverted, by the results of that process of 

1)2 



36 THOUGHTS ON AFFECTATION. 

detection to which she has subjected all the companies in 
which she has mingled. But we are sorry to be compelled 
to entertain so good an opinion of her dispositions. We 
have laboured in vain to persuade ourselves that she is a 
stranger to all the virtues allied to candour and generosity. 
And why labour for so odd a purpose ? Because, in reading 
through her book, we have been continually reminded of 
one sentence in the earlier part of it : " Generosity is 
always unsuspicious, and fancies more virtue than really 
exists ; nay, is sometimes too credulous, but if this be an 
error it is a most pleasing one," (p. 40). We have said 
to ourselves at the end of each section : ' Now, if we were 
certain that she has none of this generosity, we might 
console ourselves by the persuasion that the case is not 
quite so bad as she represents. But, on the contrary, we 
are afraid she is generous; she has therefore the kindly 
credulity which judges far too favourably of mankind ; and 
if she, who views them in a light so much more favourable 
than that of absolute truth, sees, notwithstanding, that at 
least half their intercourse consists in mutual hypocrisy, 
what would be pronounced of them by a person, who with 
equal shrewdness should not have generosity enough to 
beguile the judgment into such an error ? ' 

While we wish our author may have the good fortune to 
preserve her generosity undiminished, we may have some 
difficulty to forgive her for having lessened ours. After 
being made the witnesses of her course of experiments, in 
which so many things have been divested of their first 
appearances, we are afraid we shall not for some time be 
able to enter into any society without a suspicion too 
watchful for the indulgence of the friendly feelings. We 
shall be repeating to ourselves, " They are not what they 
seem;" and instead of objects of kindness, shall be tempted 
to regard them as mere subjects to try and sharpen our 
sagacity upon. We may be in danger of feeliDg like a man 
who is so intent on detecting a number of persons appearing 
in masks, that he is almost pleased with the most lamen- 
table accident that makes one of these masks fall off. Even 
in our capacity of reviewers, the impression of her book may 
affect us, in a manner unfortunate for the feelings of men, 
whose highest gratification is well known to consist in the 



THOUGHTS ON AFFECTATION. 37 

exercise of candour, and the conferring of praise. She can 
easily believe that we shall deeply regret to feel that we 
have in any degree lost that amiable simplicity and credulity 
with which we have been accustomed to read dedications 
and panegyrics ; expressions of the humble opinion enter- 
tained by authors concerning their books ; accounts of their 
reluctance and hesitation to publish till the importunity of 
friends prevailed ; wishes that some abler hand may take up 
the subject; avowals of having neither expectation nor 
desire of fame ; and disinterested professions, that it will be 
a sufficient reward if but one person shall be benefited by 
the performance. 

Previously to an actual survey of mankind, it might be 
supposed that the qualities of which men assume a false 
semblance to recommend themselves, should be almost all 
good ones. But the volume before us illustrates the strange 
fact, that almost every disagreeable and detestable distinction 
of character is sometimes affected, as well as its opposite. 
At the same time, it is proper to observe that in the case of 
some of these disagreeable and odious things, the affectation 
necessarily is the reality ; as, for instance, arrogance, impu- 
dence, roughness and harshness, intemperance, and impiety. 
With regard to this last especially, we do not see how there 
can be any room to apply the term affectation, excepting 
merely to an insincere disavowal of religious belief; for as 
to all the hateful expressions of profaneness, they are bond 
fide absolute impiety, without any qualification. Indeed, it 
is but justice to our excellent author to say that in the 
section on Impiety she does chiefly confine the term affecta- 
tion to this insincere disavowal of belief; but in the section 
on Impatience she has applied the term to swearing, and the 
most horrid imprecations. It is true indeed that this 
imprecation and swearing may be mentioned as the affecta- 
tion of impatience ; but this leaves the guilt under but an 
equivocal, and therefore faint condemnation ; since, unless a 
further distinction is strongly marked, the term affectation, 
which should be confined strictly to the feigned impatience, 
may seem as if it were a sufficient term of censure for the 
impiety also, and implied that the chief guilt of the impiety, 
in this instance, were merely in its being the language of 
affectation. It should be distinctly stated that the feigned 



38 THOUGHTS OK AEFECTATION. 

impatience is one bad thing, or at least foolish thing, and 
that the impiety employed to support this affectation is 
another, and incomparably worse. We were not pleased 
with the remark in this section, that the "impious habit 
taints manner with an offensive vulgarity." The consider- 
ation of mere manners does not deserve to be mentioned or 
recollected in connexion with the diabolical language which 
she has just recited as what she had herself heard. But we 
would not for a moment be understood to insinuate that our 
author shows any intentional indulgence to the vile custom ; 
on the contrary, she evidently feels the most emphatical 
abhorrence of it : we only remark in this instance a want of 
clear distinction in her condemnation of it. — She mentions a 
curious circumstance in the section on the affected contempt 
of religion :•— 

" That believing and trembling are often mixed with apparent 
contempt of duty I know to be a fact, from the very respectable 
authority of an elderly person, who was for years a constant 
attendant on six o'clock morning prayers ; and who has assured 
me that at that vulgar hour it was by no means uncommon to 
meet fashionable young men, whose usual conversation was of 
the lightest sort, and who in gay company would have scoffed 
at going to church, where they would have thought it a disgrace 
to be seen at a late hour." — P. 105. 

There is a great difference between that prudent and 
necessary self-government by which a man avoids the 
practical exhibition of the bad or foolish dispositions which 
he feels, and regrets to feel, and that simulation of the direct 
contrary qualities which may justly be termed affectation. 
That which our author condemns as affectation, is generally 
a very discriminative and strongly delineated picture of what 
truly deserves the name. In a very few instances, however, 
we have thought that what she censures may be no more 
than such a cautious repression of feelings as a wise man 
would often wish to exert. In many cases in life, both 
virtue and common sense forbid to let all out. And we have 
now and then wished that our respectable author, when 
describing what was overdone in the way of feigning a good 
quality, had denned what would be just enough done in the 
way of concealing a bad one. At the same time, it is to be 
observed that this care to avoid displaying a bad quality 



THOUGHTS ON AFFECTATION. 39 

should be ever accompanied with an effort and earnest wish 
for the destruction of its existence. 

In several instances our author makes assertions, at 
which, considering her discernment in human character, we 
could not help being surprised. "Gratitude," she says, 
(pp. 42, 43) " seems so natural, as for it to be impossible ever 
to affect that which must, without any effort, belong to 
every being that exists. It is in the most exalted manner 
constantly directed towards the Giver of all good, in whom 
we live, move, and have our being. Gratitude to God 
certainly admits not of affectation ; we all must, we all do 
feel it." Surely sentences like these were written, either 
under the immediate impression of some pleasing circum- 
stance which deluded the author's judgment into an 
extravagant charity, or in a moment of great inattention. 
For it would seem impossible she should not be aware of the 
notorious and melancholy fact that vast numbers of persons, 
even of respectable education, and in what is called a Chris- 
tian country, do not appear to feel one emotion of pious 
gratitude throughout the whole year. They may now and 
then utter the expression "Thank God," or some similar 
phrase, which, in their careless way of using it is no better 
than absolute profaneness, while their general language 
abounds with direct insults to the Almighcy. They never, 
as far as can be observed, spend one moment in anything like 
devotional employment ; and, instead of that conscientious 
obedience which would be the evidence of gratitude to the 
Supreme Benefactor, the tenor of their conduct but evinces 
alternate forgetfulness and contempt of his commands. 

"We could not help noticing one little circumstance of 
inconsistency in her manner of mentioning the subject of 
cards, in two or three different parts of the book. Playing at 
cards " is at best, even when it injures neither fortune nor 
temper (and how seldom does that happen!) a total waste of 
time, which might indisputably be better employed," 
(p. 213). " I see no merit in actually not knowing how to 
play at cards, and no want of good sense in occasionally 
making up the party of those persons to whom it is an 
amusement," (p. 178). "In a dictatorial style to decry, or 
to announce contempt for, what is the entertainment of so 
many people, is the sign of a weak understanding, of 



40 THOUGHTS ON AFFECTATIOK. 

affected, and not of true prudence," (p. 214). If these 
passages had fallen under her eye at once, she would have 
felt the necessity of some alteration. And would it not 
have been obvious to her, what alteration? All moral 
speculation must be a dream, if that which is pronounced to 
be at best a " total waste of time," should not therefore be 
absolutely and unconditionally condemned. Is our estimate 
of time come at last to this, that it is a thing which may be 
totally wasted without guilt ? It is true that a person may 
declare against cards in an affected manner ; but the expres- 
sions we have quoted apparently go the length of attributing 
affectation not only to a particular manner, but also to the 
thiog itself. A man may " decry and announce contempt " 
from a motive less dignified than a purely moral one ; but it 
is not easy to conceive anything more deserving of contempt 
than the grave employment for hours together of a number 
of rational beings in what she describes as a "laborious 
amusement, which demands more application of the mind 
than is required for the attainment of many a more desirable 
art," and which after all is at best but a total waste of time. 
If there be any possible case in which we can be certain of 
not misplacing our contempt of the employment, and our 
censure of the persons, it must be this. 

In p. 114 she alludes to "the amusements suited to the 
age" of young persons, in a way to include " dancing at the 
ball." We think it would have well become the good sense 
and benevolent intention so conspicuous in this volume, to 
have pronounced that what experience proves to be a perni- 
cious folly, is suited to no age. "We must also protest 
against the morality of such a passage as the following : " I 
should feel highly gratified could I suppose it possible that I 
shall persuade any one old gentleman" (she is speaking of 
old beaux that affect youth) " instead of talking nonsense to 
girls who laugh at him, to join their mothers and aunts at 
the whist-table." If these two occupations are the only 
alternative, why may not the poor old wretch choose which 
he likes best, alleging that the prettier fools, even 
though they do laugh at him, are the more pleasant set of 
the two ? But it is wrong for a writer who reveres what 
this writer professes to revere, to seem to allow that either 
of these employments can be the proper one for a miserable 



i 



THOUGHTS 03" AFFECTATION. 41 

creature in danger of that last and deepest curse, — to close 
a life of folly by a death without repentance. As she makes 
repeated references in a serious and explicit manner to those 
future prospects, a right contemplation of which would 
dictate a plan of life widely different from what is generally 
in vogue in polished society, she ought not to have shown 
the least tolerance to anything essentially incompatible with 
the principles of such a plan. There is no pardoning one 
sentence that sanctions such things as balls for young 
people and whist for old ones, in a book which sometimes 
alludes to the Supreme Judge, to the improvement of time, 
to the period of retribution, and to eternity. It cannot be 
too often repeated that Christianity will be an absolute 
monarch or nothing, that it has pronounced an irreversible 
execration on those vain habits of which the things just 
specified are a part and an evidence, and that a man 
positively must reject them or reject it. The general 
rectitude of our author's judgment has been beguiled by her 
intercourse with the world, out of an accurate perception of 
the aspect which Christianity bears on some of the world's 
habits. And, therefore, a few of her strictures are content 
to propose a modification of what they should have 
condemned to destruction. 

"We will select a few specimens of the illustrations, which 
give a spirited and entertaining, as well as instructive cha- 
racter to this volume : — 

"It is too often a fact that the obscure petitioner will be 
harshly refused, while the genteel charity is cheerfully engaged 
in ; of this a strong instance occurs to me which I cannot help 
relating. I one day applied to a rich and elegant lady for some 
relief for a poor family whom I knew to be in the greatest 
distress, owing to the father's extreme illness preventing him 
from the daily labour by which he maintained a lying-in wife 
and several children, one of whom had lately had the misfortune 
of breaking a leg. I was not a little hurt to be answered with 
the greatest coldness, ' that it was impossible to relieve every- 
body that was in want ; and that she had already given all she 

chose to give in charity to Lady , in order to help her 

poor coachman to Bath to visit his friends, and perhaps try the 
efficacy of the waters for his stomach.' 'But,' said I, ' these 
good people are your neighbours, the father has often worked 
in your grounds, they are worthy and in great distress.' * And 



42 THOUGHTS ON AFFECTATION. 

what of that?' replied my acquaintance, e I can't maintain all 
the people I hear of ; besides, you know, there is such a thing as 
the parish — let them apply to that.' I presently took my leave, 
when on going out of the house I was stopped by a footman 
(whom I had observed to linger in the room busy in repairing 
the fire, for a considerable time during our conversation), who 
with tears in his eyes said to me, slipping a couple of shillings 
into my hand, ' I have known honest Tom for years ; I wish 
this were more ; but such as it is he is heartily welcome.' I went 
away delighted ; and, as may easily be imagined, not without 
thinking of the poor widow and her mite." — P. 14. 

It is amusing to imagine the airs and attitudes in which 
the lady alluded to will display her mildness and her charms, 
if she should happen to read this story. In that case, we 
hope this footman will be far enough out of her way. He 
had better, we will assure him, be caught in any hail-storm 
that will happen this winter, than be within reach of my 
lady's bell when she reads this paragraph. Our worthy 
author, too, had better meet Hecate and all her witches, 
than come in the way of this personage about the same good 
time. It was from her having given a great number of 
illustrations in this manner, from real facts and persons, that 
we were induced to express our concern that she may have 
philosophy enough to brave the spite which her temerity 
may have provoked. 

It is not for us to say whether she is as correct as she is 
humorous, and what is sometimes called wicked, in the fol- 
lowing passages on the affectation of cowardice : — 

11 Fear produces so much compassion, that there is no occasion on 
which it may not be pretty for a lady to be alarmed. She may 
scream if the carriage goes a little awry ; or if she should unfortu-r 
nately be forced to enter a ferry-boat ; or perhaps the nasty wasp 
may sting her. And then to shriek, and put herself in elegant 
attitudes, as she flies round the room to avoid it, is delicate, and 
interests the attention of the gentleman, who endeavours to 
destroy this disturber of the lady's peace. If in a crowd, the 
lady is to be afraid she shall be killed ; though with the assist- 
ance of the gentleman who protects her, and pities her timidity, 
she gets as safely through the push as any other person. During 
a walk, she may be in agonies for fear of a mad dog, or an over- 
driven ox: indeed horses, cows, feeding quietly in the field, a 
shabby looking man at a distance, or any thing, will do for the 
display of the feminine attraction of cowardice. I have known 



THOUGHTS ON AFFECTATION. 43 

a poor innocent mouse, or even a frog, throw a whole party into 
terrible confusion. But then, it must be observed, that these 
terrors seldom show themselves if the ladies are unaccompanied 
by some man, in whose eyes they wish to appear graceful : and 
a woman walking with only her servant, would hardly fall into 
hysterics at the sight of a toad ; though in company the same 
hideous spectacle might have caused the most dreadful agitation 
of spirits."— P. 28. 

Of the affectation of being younger than a person really 
is, she gives a pitiable instance : — 

'•' There cannot be a stronger proof of the very prevalent fond- 
ness for youth, which belongs to every situation and time of life, 
than in the behaviour of a woman who lived on charity. On 
petitioning for some additional relief from her parish, she was 
told by the person who was drawing up her case, that her age 
must be mentioned ; but seeming rather averse to disclose the im- 
portant secret, and saying she never had known exactly what it 
was, ' Well,' said the Mend, who meant to assist her, ' we must 
make it all as bad as we can, consistently with truth ; so I may 
certainly very safely say fifty.' 'No, no, ma'am,' interrupted 
the poor creature, with the greatest earnestness, 'no, not so bad 
as fifty ; I have been a-thinking, and am sure I ben't more than 
forty-nine, and not quite half neither.' This wretched woman 
was diseased, deformed, and in the most abject poverty ; and yet as 
much affected youth as the fine lady, who puts on rouge, and 
multiplies ornaments, to conceal years that will not be con- 
cealed."— P. 289. 

"We are inclined to attribute affectation to an instance, 
which the author cites as an example of dignity of conduct ; 
and which would have been eminently such, if not affected. 

" The old general officer was no coward, of whom it was well 
known, that when excuses were offered to him by the friend of 
a young man who had used very improper language at a public 
place the night before, he received the apology by saying, "I am 
very deaf, sir,and did not hear half the poor young gentleman said.' 
' But he is very truly ashamed ; for he says he was foolish 
enough to give you his address, and ask for a meeting this 
morning.' ' He might,' returned the general, ' but pray don't 
let him distress himself ; I did not look at it, and the crowd 
being very great, I dropped the card ; so that I don't even know 
his name.'*— P. 25. 

The style of this volume indicates a hand not habituated 



44 THE FTJTTJRE OF ENGLAFD AND AMEEICA. 

to the business, or at least not to the critical rules, of com- 
position. It is of an unformed, negligent, and at times 
very incorrect cast ; and yet has occasionally that kind of 
point and elegance, which we have observed to occur some- 
times even in tbe ordinary conversation of all intelligent 
women. 

By one moment's attention, the author will perceive that 
she has put a mistaken construction on the term "vanity," as 
used in the apothegm of Ecclesiastes, cited in the beginning 
of her introduction. 

After what we have said, we need not add, that we feel 
very sincere respect for this anonymous lady, whoever she 
may be, and deem her book, with one or two little excep- 
tions, a valuable miscellany of instructions, especially for 
young persons in genteel life, for whom it is particularly 
designed. 



THE EUTUEE OE ENGLAND AND AMEEICA. 

The Stranger in America. — Containing Observations made during a 
long Residence in that Country, on the Genius, Manners, and 
Customs of the People of the United States ; with Biographical 
Particulars of Public Characters ; Hints and Facts relative to the 
Arts, Sciences, Commerce, Agriculture, Manufactures, Emigration, 
and the Slave Trade. By Charles William Janson, Esq., late 
of the State of Ehode Island, Counsellor at Law. 4to. 1807. 

The appellation of mother-country has been familiarly ap- 
plied to England in relation to America, and there was a 
time when the title was very nattering to her vanity, and per- 
haps very gratifying to her parental affections. She fancied 
herself grown young again in the unfolding charms, the 
vigorous health, the rising stature, and the active spirit of 
her hopeful descendant, whose name she was continually 
repeating, whose lineaments of resemblance to herself she 
fondly traced, and whose honour she watchfully and even 
fiercely defended, against every suspicious or unfriendly 
demonstration. She looked round with no little exultation 



THE STBAtfGEB IN AMEBICA. 45 

mixed perhaps with no little contempt, on some of her 
neighbours, who could not show so fair and virtuous an off- 
spring. 

Eor some time all went on very well. The matron, feel- 
ing no rivalry with the blooming minor, was liberal in her 
* indulgences and moderate in her claims ; while the daugh- 
ter, conscious of the necessity of protection, revering a 
personage that every one else was seen to revere, and 
affected with the kindness of the parental caresses, was 
happy in the exercise of an almost uniform obedience. 
The time, however, inevitably arrived when she could no 
longer be treated as a child, and to the elder lady the 
wisdom was not given, to know how to behave to her as a 
person come to maturity. The matron began to feel a 
certain indefinable jealousy, which gradually displayed 
itself in a change of deportment from easy cordiality to 
manners of alternate formality and petulance, followed by a 
more rigid exaction of the homage and the services which 
she had been accustomed to receive in the earlier years of 
her young relative. The daughter expressed her regret at 
this change, mingled with a degree of pride which ventured 
to intimate that the age for silent obedience and un- 
conditional submission was past, and presumed to mention 
counter-claims, in the way of compromise. The senior 
dame, incensed to hear of conditions and stipulations from 
what had been so lately a helpless dependent brat, made 
short work, and reduced the question to the alternative of 
absolute submission, or the utmost vengeance of her power. 
The damsel was instantly fired with the spirit of an Amazon, 
sought the acquaintance, and accepted the aid, of her 
mother's most inveterate rival, and finally declared she 
could establish herself in the world separate and free. This 
determination she carried into effect, with a courage and 
address which triumphed over the greatest difficulties ; and 
she has ever since maintained the behaviour of an equal, 
tolerably civil when she has experienced civility, and in- 
different or contemptuous, when the old lady could not, in 
her manners, repress her spleen at recollecting, how lately 
she possessed an absolute authority over this arrogant 
virago. 

Since that period, the maternal title has sounded but 



46 THE ETTTTTBE OF ENGLAND AND AMEEICA. 

ungraciously in the ears of the personage, who has lost 
both the authority and the affection which render it flatter- 
ing. In plain terms, the English nation, while contemplat- 
ing the American States, is rather mortified than pleased, in 
recollecting whence they have derived their origin, and 
would perhaps regard them with somewhat more com- 
placency, if they had been a people sprung from some 
distant and forgotten stock. It had been less grating to 
our pride, to have acknowledged an independence inherited 
from a horde of Esquimaux or Tartars, than an independence 
assumed in requital of our patronage, and in defiance of our 
power. We hear of their advancing population, agriculture, 
and commerce, not without some occasional feelings like 
those of a man who observes the flourishing condition and 
ample produce of an estate which he lately called his own, 
but which an expensive litigation, and an adjustment of 
what he may deem very questionable equity, has trans- 
ferred to another claimant. This feeling will be occasionally 
awakened, till the present generation shall be passed away, 
and succeeded by a race to whom the loss of America will 
be, not a matter of irksome remembrance, but merely a 
fact of history, like the loss of our ancient possessions in 
France. 

Perhaps at length, when America shall have grown into a 
magnificent association of empires, the pride of having been 
their origin will be kindled afresh, and England, become, as 
she may eventually become, one of the inferior states of 
Europe, will boast that it is in America that she appears in 
her glory, where her language, her literature, and the spirit 
of her polity and laws, are extended from the shores of the 
Atlantic to those of the Pacific Ocean, and from Lake 
Superior to the Straits of Magellan. 

"We have said that England may eventually become one 
of the inferior states of the Old World. Indeed this seems 
inevitable (supposing no unforeseen causes to intervene), if 
we have any right to believe that the other countries may 
at length attain the same proportionate population, and an 
equal eminence in knowledge and civilization. For when- 
ever the nations shall become nearly equal in these grand 
attainments, the precedence in importance and influence 
will naturally fall to those of the number, that, possessing 



THE STBANGER Iff AMERICA. 47 

the widest extent of compact territory, have the greatest 
number of people at command. If, therefore, in the progress 
of time, the greater and more southern part of the .Russian 
empire, if Germany, consolidated, as it may very possibly 
be, into one mighty state, and if France, though reduced to 
narrower limits than those to which her arms have extended 
her authority, should. rise to the same intellectual and moral 
level as England, each of them will then, according to the 
most obvious principles of proportion, hold an immense 
superiority over her, in the consideration, and in the power 
of influencing the condition, of the world : and we cannot 
see any insurmountable obstacles to the possibility of their 
ultimate attainment of this rival improvement of the mind. 
As to the importance which England derives at present from 
her naval power, nothing can be more factitious and pre- 
carious. This cumbrous engine, which is gradually exhaust- 
ing the national vigour which actuates it, will become 
useless, as the larger states continue to advance in that 
knowledge which organizes numbers and physical resources 
into national power. If she maintain amity with the greater 
nations, she will not need this naval force, and if hostility, 
she will lose it. Eor the skill derived from progressive arts 
and repeated trial, combined with ampler resources supplied 
by nature and numbers, will enable the superior states ulti- 
mately to destroy it. And when the fighting navy of Eng- 
land shall be finally humbled, the commercial navy must 
follow in a great measure its fate. But, indeed, the nations 
of a wiser age will probably cease to think foreign commerce 
worth protecting or contesting at the expense of naval 
armaments. They will find a much more useful employment 
of their industry in the endless improvement of internal 
economy (at present so miserably neglected in our own 
country), than in the manufacture of luxuries for foreign 
markets. 

"While thus anticipating the declining importance of Eng- 
land in the rank of nations, we may feel a stronger interest 
in looking forward to the future greatness of America (as 
soon as we can surmount the mortification of having lost 
her as a dependency), than we could feel in viewing the 
rising magnitude of states with which we never had any 
intimate connexion; because, as we have observed, it will 



48 THE EUTTJEE OE ESGLAHD AXD AMEEICA. 

seem to be England still, that is pre-eminent among the 
nations, when a vast continent is inhabited by people of 
English descent and names, when maxims first derived from 
England are the basis of their social system, and when 
English authors are the authors most familiarly read and 
admired, by perhaps, far more than a hundred millions of 
persons. 

The character and circumstances of such a people are 
subjects of the highest curiosity, not from the present rank 
which this people holds in the civilized world, but as afford- 
ing some prognostics of the future moral condition of a con- 
tinent, which will probably soon become, in every part, 
finally independent of all the rest of the globe, and from the 
wide separation of all its habitable regions from the other con- 
tinents, will become a world of its own. "We look with great 
interest on the disclosure of the features and proportions of 
a form, which is growing fast toward a gigantic magnitude ; 
and on the first symptoms of character, in a youth who is 
born to be a monarch. 

Knowing what long periods of time are required, even in 
the happiest progress of states, to eradicate evils admitted 
into the first constitution of the society, and that, on the 
contrary, time often but operates to confirm them, we look 
forward with a degree of apprehensiveness to a period when 
national foibles, as an indulgent moralist may be willing at 
present to denominate them, will perhaps have become 
aggravated into most pernicious vices, infecting cities yet 
unbuilt, and the unnumbered cultivators of regions darkened 
as yet with ancient woods, where not one civilized man has 
ever wandered. If we should see the corruptions of civili- 
zation advancing far more rapidly than its refinements ; if 
we should observe the faculties of a people matured to the 
perfection of cunning, while yet remaining stationary in the 
very rudiments of scientific speculation ; if we should see a 
selfishness that for the most paltry advantages will slight 
even the plainest maxims of honesty, in a people surrounded 
by the inexhaustible resources and treasures which convey 
nature's own injunction to be liberal ; — we inquire anxiously 
after every probable counteracting cause, which may tend to 
interrupt the natural progress of depravity, from such be- 
ginnings in the small state, to a complete and systematical 






THE STRANGER IN AMERICA. 49 

usurpation of the energy of the large one. We earnestly 
seek for any ground of hope, that the same general contempt 
of all moral principles, and the same oppressions, rancours, 
and miseries, may not overspread the new continent, which 
have supplied the principal materials of the history of the 
old. "With regard also to the government among such a 
people, it is a glorious privilege to have begun with an ar- 
rangement founded on the simplest and most comprehensive 
principles, an arrangement not so decidedly fixed in all its 
parts as to preclude many experiments and innovations, and 
not too authoritatively administered to allow a boundless 
liberty of discussion and animadversion ; but we tremble 
lest rash exertions of popular freedom, combined with super- 
ficial notions of the theory of government, should throw the 
power into the hands of parties, that will leave it at last in 
the hands of individuals, who will sacrifice the people in 
their destructive contests with one another. 

The double character of description and prophecy in which 
we receive the accounts of a people, with so vast a prospect 
before them, gives peculiar interest to the communications 
of every sensible observer of their manners. A wandering 
kind of residence, of many years, in America, has enabled 
Mr. Janson to survey all the forms of society, in almost all 
the United States, much more attentively and comprehen- 
sively than if he had been a mere tour-making traveller. In 
consequence of his long residence or sojourn, his book has 
the advantage over the customary travelling journals, of 
being less loaded with those tedious narratives of rainy 
days, dirty inns, bad breakfasts, and disasters to coats, hats, 
stockings, or boots, which have now, we believe, established 
their right to at least a fourth part of every volume of 
travels. Mr. Jansou intermixes a portion of this kind of 
history, but it is given chiefly on occasions where it is as 
much a description of the manners and habits of the people, 
as a story of his personal adventures. His book contains, 
in a very unmethodical form, a large share of curious and 
useful information ; and we wish we were not compelled to 
perceive any of the usual symptoms of book-making, and 
that Mr. Janson had been induced to compress the two 
costly volumes (for he proposes a second) into one. There 
are many things inserted, which we think have no proper 

E 



50 THE FUTURE OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 

place in an account of the present state of America, especially 
some details relating purely to the War of Independence, and 
which have been purchased and read before, or must be pur- 
chased and read again, in the regular histories of that war. 
As he deemed this a lawful expedient for giving the proper 
dimensions to the volume, we must commend his modera- 
tion for he might easily have taken ten times as much from 
the same quarter. In these unnecessary details we include 
the biographical sketches of Gates, _ Putnam Hamilton, 
Arnold, Pinckeney, and several other individuals. We are 
not convinced of the necessity of enlarging at this time on 
the machinations of the French minister Genet, and intro- 
ducing his correspondence with members of the American 
government ; of relating at length the quarrel and judicial 
proceedings about a ship of a Mr. Ogden, which was em- 
ployed in General Miranda's expedition; or of occupying 
eight pages with a clumsy burlesque "from the pen of the 
Hon H H. Blackenridge," on the order of the Cincinnati, 
a subiect, to be sure, on which better writing would have 
been thrown away. The tedious and vexatious protraction 
of proceedings in courts of law is not such a surprising 
novelty, as to require long extracts from term reports to 
convince us of its possible existence m America ; Mr. Jan- 
son's assertion would have been quite a sufficient authority. 
The ample history of two rival Anglo-American companies 
of players, is extremely well-judged and well-timed, if it is 
really intended as a bitter satire on our country, which, 
amidst the gloomy presages and astonishing events oi the 
present crisis, is completely at leisure, as we have occasion 
to perceive, to be interested about such vicious trifles. 
Whimsical and pompous advertisements are a harmless 
amusement enough, but to us our indigenous produce would 
have seemed too plentiful to need any importation across 
the Atlantic. One or two of them, indeed have , a certain 
nationality in their extravagance which entitled them to be 
introduced. The mention of Mr. Emmett, now a distin- 
guished pleader in the courts of New York and formerly 
one of the United Irishmen, is accompanied by an account 
of the principal persons of that society, and oi some oi the 
proceedings which terminated in the melancholy _ events ,of 
1798 Now we have heard of the additional virtues im- 



THE STEANGEE IN AMERICA. 51 

parted to wines by being taken on a long voyage and brought 
back again, but we cannot conceive now the clearness or 
importance of an historical document can be improved by 
being thus made to traverse thousands of miles of sea.. The 
story of the adventures and sufferings of Generals "Whalley 
and Groffe, who had been among the judges that condemned 
Charles the First; and being proscribed at the Restoration, 
concealed themselves many years, till their death, in Con- 
necticut, is an article foreign to what should be the purpose 
of the book, yet so interesting, that the reader cannot wish 
it to have been omitted. The numerous extracts from news- 
papers would seem to indicate, that political wisdom, seldom 
finds a more dignified vehicle in the United States.. And 
certainly there may easily be as much eloquence and sound 
reasoning in the comments of a newspaper, as in a speech of 
Mr. Randolph or Mr. Otis ; but Mr. Janson would have 
been much more sparing of these extracts, if he had duly 
considered the difficulty of making them look respectable, 
long after the occasions to which they refer, in another 
country which has newspapers and squabbles of its own, and 
in a volume which costs two guineas. 

The omission of what we should deem injudiciously 
inserted, would deduct perhaps one-third of the substance of 
the book. For the rest, though we may have our objections 
to the quality of particular parts, we think Mr. Janson has 
contributed very materially to extend our acquaintance with 
the people of America. Being disappointed in the projects 
with which he went to that country, suffering a very serious 
loss, in company with many other persons, through a dis- 
graceful proceeding of the government of Greorgia, and ex- 
periencing occasionally some marks of the aversion which he 
informs us is still entertained by a large proportion of the 
Americans against Englishmen, it was perhaps inevitable for 
him to contemplate the American character under the influ- 
ence of feelings tending to aggravate its faults. But we 
think we perceive the general prevalence of an equitable 
judgment, and that he does not consciously allow himself in 
any misrepresentation. His attention has been directed in 
a certain degree to most of the subjects of a European's 
inquiries concerning the United States ; the climate and face 
of the country, the manners, the population, the accommo- 

e 2 



52 THE EUTUEE OP ENGLAND, AND AMERICA. 

dations of abode and travelling, the extension of territory, 
the political contests, and the prospects of emigrants. We 
could have wished for more information respecting the state 
of knowledge in the several classes of people, and also some 
conjectures as to the proportions in which they are employed 
in the different branches of industry. 

Mr. Janson has been more attentive to separate facts than 
to the connexion of various facts with one another, or the 
general deductions from the whole. Even without such 
deductions, it had been better if the facts had been more 
classified. His moral map of America is dissected into such 
small pieces, and these pieces are so effectually displaced, 
that it is difficult to arrange into a tolerable order in our 
minds, the information which these dislocated particulars 
are really adapted to supply. As Mr. Janson probably, from 
the first, recorded facts and observations without intending 
to assume the privileges of the narrative series of the tra- 
veller, it might have been the best method to have had a 
number of distinct heads, under each of which all the articles 
of the same nature should have been inserted. 

His testimony confirms the allegations of Volney, and 
very many former deponents, against the climate of the 
United States, as being in a high degree oppressive and 
insalubrious. The severest extremes of heat and cold afflict 
them all, except the two or three most southern states, the 
heat of which therefore in summer, it may well be imagined, 
is intolerable to persons brought up in the temperature of 
such a country as England. And the inclemency of seasons 
consists not only in the regular extremes, in summer and 
winter, but also in sudden violent changes, which may take 
place indifferently at one season or another. To the suffer- 
ings and diseases caused by these extremes of weather, are 
to be added all the inconveniences contributed to the account 
by the exhalations of vast stagnant marshes, and by an 
infinity of reptiles and mosquitoes. 

In traversing each part of the Union, Mr. Janson was 
attentive to the natural produce, and to the state of the 
cultivation. He has given various particulars relative to 
the culture of indigo, cotton, rice, Indian corn, and 
tobacco. 

Being advised to purchase a few hogsheads of the latter 



THE STEAKGEE LN - AMEEICA. 53 

plant, as a convenient mode of remittance to England, and 
being at the time too much in haste to inspect the article 
himself, our author relied, as he informs us, on the integrity 
of the Quakers with whom he transacted, and learned the 
propriety of cautioning those who may trade to Philadelphia 
for tobacco, not to trust to the weights marked on the hogs- 
heads, but stipulate to have them re-weighed. In his three 
hogsheads, the weight as marked in a British custom-house 
was nearly five cwt. less than it had been marked in America! 
And this kind of deception, he says, is very usual. 

The work is deficient in point of information, respecting 
the domestic character of the Americans, as displayed in 
their forms of politeness, the cast of conversation in the 
different ranks (if we may employ that term), the treatment, 
estimate, accomplishments, and influence of the women, and 
the education of children. The author tells us he was not 
so happy as to become a lover in America ; but it was not, 
therefore, necessary that he should hardly seem to recognize 
the existence of the female sex on a great continent, the 
moral destiny of the inhabitants of which, as of every other 
civilized country, will depend so much on the education and 
character of that sex. Perhaps the interrogative imperti- 
nence of the Misses Archbold, who harassed him so cruelly 
on the day after his arrival, irritated him into a vow that he 
would never condescend to notice or mention their country- 
women as long as he should live. And, as if in desperate 
revenge, he fills page after page with the praises and adven- 
tures of a lady of his own country, the magnanimous wife of 
Major Acland, a British officer employed in the American 
war. "Without making any pretensions to gallantry, we do 
think it is an unpardonable offence against the women of 
America, that their entire number, amounting possibly to 
fifteen hundred thousand, should not be deemed worthy to de- 
serve as much space in his book, as one Englishwoman that 
happened to tread on their ground in the year 1775. But it 
is not on the score of sentiment that we remark on this sub- 
ject ; it is on account of the absolute moral and political im- 
portance of the women, as constituting the one-half of a 
nation, and most essentially influencing the whole, that we 
allege, not a defect of feeling, but of observation and judg- 
ment, against a traveller, who, in surveying a foreign coun- 



54 THE FUTT7BE OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 

try, overlooks the character and situation of the female part 
of its inhabitants. Two or three circumstances, casually 
mentioned, respecting children, give us a very unfavourable 
surmise as to their education. Somewhat more is said about 
servants, and the following short passage may convey the 
essence of the information. 

" The arrogance of domestics in this land of republican liberty 
and equality, is particularly calculated to excite the astonish- 
ment of strangers. To call persons of this description servants, 
or to speak of their master or mistress, is a grievous affront. 
Having called one day at the house of a gentleman of my ac- 
quaintance, on knocking at the door, it was opened by a servant 
maid, whom I had never before seen, as she had not been long 
in his family. The following is the dialogue, word for word, 
which took place on this occasion : ' Is your master at home V 
— ' I have no master.' — 'Don't you live here V — ' I stay here.' — 

' And who are you then V — ' Why, I am Mr. 's help. I'd 

have you to know, man, that I am no sarvant ; none but negers 
are sarvants?" — Pp. 87, 88. 

"With regard to the prominent and general qualities which 
constitute what may be called the national character, the 
reader of the work before us will be led to form a different 
estimate from what his benevolence would have wished. 
The conviction will be forced upon him that, however melan 
choly may be the moral condition of Europe, it is not t 
America that he is to look at present for the reign of virtue 
for liberal views, for the rapid progress of knowledge, or fo: 
amiable manners. He cannot avoid discerning that the pr 
dominant principle is an unremitting passion for gain ; tb 
cultivation of taste, the studies of abstract truth, and eve: 
the splendid attractions of ambition, are regarded with indif- 
ference or contempt in this grand pursuit ; and we wish it 
could not be added that a scrupulous morality is seldom 
allowed to impede its success. The transaction of th 
Georgian government, related p. 263, is an indication that 
the moral character of the individual is also that of the 
state. All things are reduced to pecuniary calculation, 
nature and art, sea and land, the things on the earth, and 
the things under the earth. "While a man of taste and 
reflection contemplated one of the vast rivers, as a noble 
spectacle in the natural world, the American would be con- 



? 



THE EUTTTKE OP ENGLAND AND AMEEICA. 55 

sidering it merely as a channel of trade; while the one 
looked with a sentiment of almost superstitious awe into the 
gloom of an immeasurable forest, the venerable kingdom of 
silence and solitude, excepting as haunted by mysterious 
and invisible beings, with which his imagination would peo- 
ple the twilight of every grove, the other would be reckon- 
ing how many years and dollars would be required to burn 
and clear a space of it, from this river to yonder hill. We 
must acknowledge, however, that the passion for gain ap- 
proaches nearer, than in any other of its forms, to some- 
thing respectable and magnanimous, in this spirit of enter- 
prise, which is continually invading and conquering the 
"Western wilderness with the implements and fires of culti- 
vation. 

Another conspicuous characteristic of the Americans is, 
an ostentation of their freedom. They feel it a sufficient 
license to be rude, that they cannot be compelled to be 
otherwise. They are unable to comprehend, how manners 
softened into mildness and deference, can at all consist with 
a feeling of independence. They cannot verify it to their 
own satisfaction that they really are not slaves, but by con- 
tinually reminding you that you are not their master ; and 
this is done alternately by inattention and obtrusive 
familiarity. 

The excessive curiosity of the Americans, of which our 
author often complains, might be sometimes teasing and 
impertinent ; but we think he was rather too irritable under 
his frequent examinations and cross-examinations. And we 
may be allowed to suggest, that his vanity would, perhaps, 
have been a little piqued, if the good people had not thought 
it worth while even to ask him a single question, about 
either himself or his country. The following dialogue might 
perhaps have become amusing, if his impatience had not so 
suddenly snapped it off. 

" Seeing a pleasant little cottage on the river Connecticut, and 
understanding that it was to be let, I knocked at the door, which 
was opened by a woman, of whom I inquired the rent of the 
house. — ' And where are you from 1 ' was the reply. — ' Pray, 
madam,' I again asked, ' is this house to be let 1 ' — ' Be you 
from New York or Boston V said the inquisitive dame. The 
place was situated about half-way between those two towns. 



56 THE STBAtfGER ITT AMEEICA. 

Impatient at this mode of reply — ' I'll thank you, madam/ I 
repeated, ' to acquaint me with the price demanded for this little 
place?' — 'Pray what may you be?' rejoined she, as if fully 
determined not to satisfy my inquiry till I had gratified her 
curiosity. I was not less resolute than herself, and turned my 
back in disgust." — P. 87. 

The manners and customs are incomparably the worst in 
the most Southern states ; and the author is ingenuous 
enough to ascribe it to the total estrangement from all 
knowledge, and inattention to all institutions of religion. 
At Edenton, one of the principal towns of North Carolina, 
the only place of worship is now reduced to a shelter for 
cattle and hogs from the heat of the sun. A horrid kind of 
amusement is acknowledged by the American writers to 
prevail in these states — it is called gouging. 

" Passing, in company with other travellers, through the state 
of Georgia, our attention was arrested by a gouging match. "We 
found the combatants, as Morse describes, fast clenched by the 
hair, and their thumbs endeavouring to force a passage into each 
other's eyes ; while several of the bystanders were betting upon 
the first eye to be turned out of its socket. For some time the 
combatants avoided the thumb stroke with dexterity. At length 
they fell to the ground, and in an instant the uppermost sprung 
up with his antagonist's eye in his hand ! The savage crowd 
applauded, while, sick with horror, we galloped away from the 
infernal scene. The name of the sufferer was John Butler, a 
Carolinian, who, it seems, had been dared to combat by a 
Georgian ; and the first eye was for the honour of the state to 
which they respectively belonged. 

" The eye is not the only feature which suffers on these occa- 
sions. Like dogs and bears, they use their teeth* and feet, with 
the most savage ferocity, upon each other. 

" A brute, in human form, named John Stanley, of Bertie 
county, North Carolina, sharpens his teeth with a file, and boasts 
of his dependence upon them in fight. This monster will also 
exult in relating the account of the noses and ears he has bitten 
off, and the cheeks he has torn. 

" A man of the name of Thomas Penrise, then living in Eden- 
ton, in the same state, attempting at cards to cheat some half- 
drunken sailors, was detected. A scuffle ensued ; Penrise 

* During the author's residence in North Carolina, Mr. Standen, the 
postmaster, and a merchant of Edenton, had a part of his cheek bitten 
off in an affray with O'Mally, a tavern-keeper in that town. 






THE STEANGEE IN AMEEICA. 57 

knocked out the candle, then gouged out three eyes, bit off an 
ear, tore a few cheeks, and made good his retreat. 

" Near the same place, a schoolmaster, named Jarvis Lucas, 
was beset by three men, one Horton, his son, and son-in-law. 
These ruffians beat the unfortunate man till his life was despaired 
of, having bitten, gouged, and kicked him unmercifully. On the 
trial of an indictment for this outrageous assault, a Carolina 
court of justice amerced them in a small fine only." — Pp. 301, 
—303. 

"With what contempt we may justly regard a government, 
that does not instantly put an end to such a practice by 
main force! It does not surprise us to find, after these 
statements, that duels are exceedingly frequent. 

Another abomination of these Southern states is the num- 
ber, treatment, and continual importation of slaves. Mr. 
Janson, with deserved scorn, contrasts this practical enor- 
mity, with that bombast about freedom, which shame has 
not disabled the organs of the people of even these states to 
utter. He had an extensive view of the miserable condition 
of the slaves, and he describes with the energy of indignant 
but not extravagant feeling. His descriptions are much of 
the same colour with those which have so often represented 
to us the general oppression, and occasional excesses of bar- 
barity, exercised on the same race in the "West Indies ; and 
on the persevering example of England, as exhibited in those 
islands, may doubtless be charged, in no small degree, the 
prevalence of the same execrable system in the American 
states. We could make large and most impressive extracts ; 
but we exult that, as to England, the time is at last arrived, 
when it is no longer necessary to renew these odious repre- 
sentations in order to excite the nation to press the abolition 
of the traffic, which is the foundation of the evil, and we are 
confident they will never be necessary in order to preclude 
repentance of that decision, when it shall have been fully 
carried into effect. As to the United States, the cause must 
be left to Providence and its avenging plagues. But we are 
aware the federal government passed an act some years since 
that the slave trade should cease in the year 1.808, and we 
will endeavour to hope, notwithstanding what we can recol- 
lect to have been done in England, that this decree of long- 
protracted justice may not prove nugatory when the term 
shall be completed. 



58 KELIGU0U3 SECTS. 

As a very welcome relief and contrast to these views of 
the American civilization, we wish we had room for Mr. 
Janson's account of the general character and administra- 
tion of the criminal laws, and his statements respecting the 
prisons, which seem well contrived for schools of industry 
and reformation. 

Respectable efforts are making in Philadelphia in favour 
of science and literature ; but we fear a long train of years 
must pass away before these will become popular attainments 
over the wide extent of the States. 

The information relative to religion, is nearly confined to 
an account of the essential fanaticism of the childish fol- 
lowers of one Ann Leese, and the occasional and circum- 
stantial fanaticism of several wiser and better denominations. 
"We are well aware that extravagances have been committed 
by the Methodists, and other classes of Christians ; but we 
can easily perceive that Mr. Janson never thought it worth his 
while to inquire into the doctrines of any of them, as main- 
tained by the more rational part of the respective societies, 
or to distinguish the transient or local excesses of these 
societies, from their more permanent character. He pro- 
bably apprehended no danger of mistake in admitting the 
wildest aspect, which ignorance and weakness would give to 
a mode of religious profession, as its true and only charac- 
ter ; and felt himself fortunate in the opportunity of being 
witty by means of the term " elect." Religion itself, in the 
abstract, is not very familiar, we fear, to our author's 
thoughts, nor were we apprised of his feeling any interest 
about the subject, till we found the rejection of Christianity 
alleged among the sins of Thomas Paine, in a needless, 
virulent, and low invective, which occupies an entire chapter 
towards the end of the volume. We must not, however, 
refuse the due applause to some of his observations on 
ecclesiastical concerns. There is a happy boldness of opinion, 
in his approbation of a bishop for raising money to build a 
church, by means of a lottery set on foot for the purpose. 
But by telling this in England, we will hcpe he cannot mean 
any malicious insinuation, that if here episcopalian churches, 
and all their appointments, were to cease to be raised and 
maintained by the absolute power of the state, the cordial 
attachment and voluntary liberality of the people, would 



THE STRASQEB IS" AMERICA. 59 

ever abandon them to the necessity of supporting themselves 
by such ingenious expedients. 

"We are amused with several singular adventures, and 
especially, in an extreme degree, by a long and fierce noc- 
turnal battle between an unarmed rustic and a bear, in a 
place named Dismal Swamp, in Virginia, in which battle the 
bear was vanquished and slain. The weight of the man was 
191, that of the bear 305 pounds. 

We are sorry to find Mr. Janson deeming it worth his 
while to repeat the fable, as at present it appears to us, and 
apparently to him also, about the man that wandered in 
company with a small band of savages, up the Missouri, till 
they found a nation of Welsh Indians, of whom it is pre- 
tended he gave a long account to a Mr. Childs, who gave it 
to a Mr. Toulmin, who has published it as a probable story. 
It was very needless to repeat it in England, after Mr. Jan- 
son and all of us know that Captain Lewis's party advanced 
near the head of the Missouri, and that Mr. Mackenzie 
traversed the region of its sources, and never saw or heard 
the slightest trace or tradition of such a people, though 
they conversed with natives who were accustomed to rove 
hundreds of leagues over the vast wilderness. 

The last subject we have to notice, is what relates to the 
prospects of settlement for strangers from Europe. This 
the author professes to have in view as one of the chief 
objects of his book. And he appears to exult in having 
made out a strong case against emigration. But we are as 
sorry as he is pleased. Eor one of the great desiderata for 
those of the inhabitants of Europe, who cannot force them- 
selves to become enamoured of eternal wars and increasing 
taxes, after doing their very utmost to convert their own 
unfashionable and perverse feelings, and who look forward 
with an almost hopeless anxiety to the establishment or 
rather ruin of their families, is some distant peaceful land, 
where the resources of nature are not scrambled for by an 
overgrown population, nor wasted by the corruption and 
extravagance of governments. Were there such a country, 
we should detest the officiousness of any man who should 
labour to excite the government of an old, over-populous 
state to prevent emigration to it. From the facts illustrated 
by Mr. Malthus, it appears very desirable that there could 



60 EMIGRATION OP THE IEISH. 

be some grand outlet, other than a field of battle, for a part 
of the population of a crowded country, unless it were pos- 
sible the government of such a country should acquire the 
wisdom to open to the last acre, all its own resources of 
cultivation. 

As to the clandestine emigration, under circumstances of 
the most revolting inconvenience, of numbers of the Irish 
peasantry, to which fact this author wishes to call the atten- 
tion of the state, we think it proves one thing at least, that 
they are beyond all endurance wretched where they are ; for 
we know it is a general law of human nature to desert with 
reluctance the native soil. Let Mr. Janson, and any other 
writer, do all that correct representations of the circum- 
stances of a distant country will do, to confirm this natural 
partiality ; but they would deserve the severest reprobation 
of every philanthropist, if they should endeavour, from the 
mere bigotry of patriotism, to raise the arm of power to 
intercept miserable beings in their escape to a place, where 
they may yet make one more trial, whether the possession of 
life is to be considered as a blessing or a curse. 

"We hope America may yet become a happy asylum for 
Europeans, when a much greater extent of the Western 
country shall be cleared, and the climate improved by the 
cultivation, when good and direct roads shall have given a 
facility of reaching the interior of the continent from the 
Atlantic coast, when there shall be a re ular system for dis- 
posing of its produce to the greatest advantage, and when 
the population shall be numerous enough to create some of 
the conveniences and refinements of society, without being 
so numerous as to raise extremely high the price of land. 
For the present, America is a most excellent place for me- 
chanics and hardy rural labourers, excepting what is to be 
apprehended from an unfriendly climate, and from destruc- 
tive diseases, which are indefinitely aggravated by the gross 
mode of living, and the frightful consumption of raw spirits. 
But the persons who wish to establish themselves by the 
purchase of lands, will feel great hesitation after reading the 
statements of Mr. Janson, respecting the expense of sup- 
porting a family while a most tedious journey is made into 
the back settlements, merely, in the first place, to determine 
where to settle, the toil of clearing the land, the exorbitant 






THE STEAEGEB, IN AMEEICA. 61 

price of labour, and the difficulty of finding a market for the 
produce, when it shall exceed the wants of the family. As 
to purchasing land, without personal inspection, of the com- 
missioners appointed for selling it, in London, or any of the 
cities of the United States, we are confident no man will do 
it after reading some parts of this book, which describe the 
nefarious deceptions practised by those agents. "We hold it 
our duty to present an extract relative to these subjects, and 
with this we conclude our review. 

" To enumerate the different frauds, and to lay open the arts 
practised upon deluded Englishmen by these gangs of coalesced 
adventurers, would alone exceed the limits of these sheets. To 
such a pitch of bare-faced deceit did they arrive, that the Ame- 
rican government was at length obliged to be its own land-agent, 
and to open offices for retailing land to English settlers. To the 
disgraceful and villanous deeds of land-speculators, Dr. Priestley, 
and indeed most of the recent English settlers, could bear testi- 
mony. False titles, forged grants, fictitious patents, and deeds 
of bargain and sale of land in the clouds were daily imposed 
upon the unwary. Sometimes, indeed, the conspirators would 
discover a tract, which was under some indispensable necessity 
of being sold, of which they would make a bona fide purchase, 
and under this cloak have they conveyed it, again and again, 
perhaps a dozen times. In other instances, the land granted was 
described to begin at a sycamore tree on such a point ; from 
thence running in a parallel line till it struck a mulberry tree ; 
from thence running due south till intersected by an oak. In 
short, the described portion comprised the most valuable timber, 
and rich, clear land, and all for one dollar per acre. In these 
cases the purchaser would often find his land, and the remains 
of the trees described ; but alas 1 instead of rich meads, fertile 
plains, valuable forests, and meandering rivers, he found a barren 
desert, not producing a single shrub. The trees had been planted 
for deception only, and the navigable rivers had found another 
course. Colonel Michael Payne, of North Carolina, marshal of 
the state, informed me that he was obliged to attend a sale of 
land in the interior part of the state, which had been levied upon 
under an execution issuing out of the federal court, and that 
upon his journey over one of the most barren and rocky coun- 
tries he had ever travelled, he observed a party of men planting 
trees. So strange an employment in so dreary a spot induced 
the colonel to inquire of the labourers what benefit they expected 
to derive from their labour. He also observed two or three 
carts, loaded with young trees, and a man at a little distance, 



62 FEATTDS OP LAND-AGENTS. 

surveying the ground, who said, in answer to the colonel's ques- 
tions, that the land was advertised for sale in London at half a 
guinea per acre, and that they were ' cooking it up a little.' 
This cookery consisted in planting a few young trees, the 
choicest growth of a far distant forest, as divisional lines and 
marks. The cook proved to be a confederate land-speculator, 
and a ci-devant congress man. The colonel added, that from the 
nature of the soil, and unpropitious situation of the land, a colony 
of English farmers could not make it worth a shilling. 

" The new state of Kentucky is more extravagantly described 
and extolled than any other part of the United States. From 
the accounts I have collected from such as have explored that 
country, the land is certainly of a superior quality to some of 
the states, and well watered by large rivers. It has increased 
much in population since the peace of 1783, but that it does not 
equally allure all who visit it to settle there, is certain. Many 
have returned, after struggling against the numerous difficulties 
of subsisting in a new country, one, two, and three years before 
they could make their daily bread. A new settler should have 
what is here termed ' plenty of force ;' that is, he should not 
attempt the planting and farming business without about a dozen 
labourers. This assistance, with two or three hundred pounds, 
may in a few years complete the clearing of a few hundred acres 
of land, the erecting of log-houses, and other necessary work. 
This land, thus cleared, will produce tobacco, hemp, wheat, 
barley, oats, clover, and most European fruits and vegetables. 
But, while we mention the quality of the land, another question 
naturally arises ; namely, how is the superfluous produce to be 
carried to market 1 It is at present above a thousand miles to 
export produce from the extreme parts of Kentucky, Ohio, and 
Tenessee, by water to the commercial cities in the United States, 
and a great many hundred by landl We find none of these 
difficulties fairly demonstrated by the writers and compilers of 
American voyages, history, and travels. The corn of these 
states could not, without great loss, be sold in Philadelphia, at 
the rate of the grain grown in its vicinity." 

This last sentence, we are confident, is incorrect. 



63 



ON MEMOIK--WEITINGL 

Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Hon. Henry Home, of 
Karnes ; containing Sketches of the Progress of Literature and 
general Improvement in Scotland, during the greater part of the 
Eighteenth Century. 2 vols. 4to. 1807. 

The principal facts relative to the individual who forms the 
leading subject of this work, may be given in a few words. 
Henry Home was the son of a country gentleman of small 
fortune, and was born in the year 1696. About the age of 
sixteen, he was bound by indenture to attend the office of a 
writer to the signet in Edinburgh, with a view to prepare 
himself for the profession of a solicitor. Being sent one 
evening by his master with some papers to the President of 
the Court of Session, he was so handsomely treated by the 
venerable judge and his daughter, and so enchanted with 
the character of dignity and elegance in tbeir manners and 
situation, that he was instantly fired with the ambition of 
attaining eminence in the public profession of the law, and 
resolved to qualify himself for an advocate. He commenced 
a most laborious course of study, as well in the departments 
of literature and science, as in the knowledge more pecu- 
liarly appropriate to his intended profession, and made a 
rapid progress in them all. He was called to the bar at the 
age of twenty-seven, published various writings on legal 
subjects, obtained at length the first eminence as a pleader, ' 
and was appointed at the age of fifty-six one of the judges 
of the Court of Session, by the title of Lord Karnes. His 
moral and metaphysical studies were prosecuted with as 
much ardour as those of the law; he was personally acquainted 
with most of the philosophers of the time ; and by means 
of his writings became celebrated as a philosopher himself. 
"When he was near the age of seventy, his fortune received 
the addition of a very large estate, left to his wife, to whom 
he had been married at the age of forty-five ; this estate he 
was almost enthusiastically fond of cultivating and adorning. 
About the same period that he obtained this wealth, his 
legal rank was raised to that of a Lord of Justiciary, a judge 
of the supreme criminal tribunal in Scotland, of which office 



64 OK" MEMOIR-WHITING. 

he continued to discharge the duties till his death, in 1782, 
in the eighty-seventh year of his age. 

Lord Karnes was a very conspicuous man in his time, and 
deserved to pass down to posterity in a record of consider- 
able length. He has rendered a material service to litera- 
ture by his "Elements of Criticism;" and from the work 
before us it is evident, that his professional studies contri- 
buted the most important advantages to both the theory 
and the administration of law in Scotland. The improve- 
ment in agriculture also, in that country, seems to have 
taken its rise, in a great measure, from his zeal and his 
example. He received from nature an extraordinary activity 
of mind, to which his multiplied occupations allowed no 
remission, even in his advanced age ; we find him as inde- 
fatigable in his eightieth year, as in the most vigorous and 
ambitious season of his life, The versatility of his talents 
was accompanied by a strength and acuteness, which pene- 
trated to the essence of the subjects to which they were 
applied. The intentions with which he prosecuted such a 
wide diversity of studies, appear often excellent ; very few 
men so ingenious, so speculative, so systematic, and occa- 
sionally so fanciful, have kept practical utility so generally 
in view. The great influence which he exerted over some of 
the younger philosophers of the time, several of the most 
distinguished of whom were proud to acknowledge them- 
selves his pupils, was employed to determine their specula- 
tions to useful purposes. His conduct in the office of judge 
appears to have impressed every impartial man that witnessed 
it, with an invariable opinion of his talents and integrity 
As a domestic and social man, his character was that of 
frankness, good humour, and extreme vivacity. His prompt 
intelligence continually played around him, and threw its 
rays on every subject that even casualty could introduce 
into conversation. His defects as a speculatist were, that 
he had not, like the very first order of minds, that simplicity 
of intellect that operates rather in the form of power than 
of ingenuity, and is too strong to be either captivated or 
amused by the spacious fallacies of a fantastic theory ; and 
that, as far as we have the means of judging, he had a 
higher respect for the conjectures of mere reason, than for 
the authority of revelation. 



I 



MEMOIRS OE LOKD KJLMES. 65 

The name of Lord Karnes is sufficiently eminent to ren- 
der an account of his life interesting, though it appeared 
more than twenty years after his death. But we greatly 
admire the modesty with which Lord "Woodhouselee, better 
known to the literary world under the name of Mr. Eraser 
Tytler, has been waiting, during this extended interval, for 
some abler hand to execute a work, to which he, very 
unaccountably, professes himself inadequate. This long 
delay, however, has been of immense service to the magni- 
tude of the performance, which has perhaps been growing 
many years, and has risen and expanded at length, into a 
most ample shade of cypress over the tomb of Lord Karnes. 

In order to give the book this prodigious size, the author 
has chosen to take advantage of Lord Karnes's diversified 
studies, to enlarge on the several subjects of those studies ; 
of his profession of law, to deduce the history of Scottish 
law, and of the lives of its most distinguished professors 
and practitioners, accompanied by dissertations on law in 
general ; and of his happening to be a Scotchman, to go 
back as far as the tenth century in order to prove that there 
were scholars then in Scotland, and return all the way 
downward, proving that there have been scholars there ever 
since. In his youth Lord Karnes was acquainted with a 
particular species of beaux, peculiar to those times, which 
animals had, if our author is to be believed, a singular 
faculty of uniting the two functions of fluttering and think- 
ing ; and therefore several individuals are to be separately 
described, (vol. i. p. 57, &c). It was extremely proper to 
give us a short account of the species, as forming a curious 
branch of entomology ; but it does not seem to have been 
so indispensable to describe, individually, beau Forrester 
and beau Hamilton. Because one of Lord Karnes's early 
friends, a Mr. Oswald, was a member of parliament, a sheet 
and a half must be occupied by uninteresting letters, which 
this Mr. Oswald wrote to him about temporary and party 
politics. A larger space is filled with letters from Dean 
Tucker, which, excepting one, and perhaps two or three 
paragraphs of another, are not of the smallest consequence, 
further than their being written to Lord Karnes ; but there- 
fore they are inserted. Lord Karnes was acquainted with 
David Hume, and therefore, in his life, there must be a very 

E 



66 OF MEMOIR-WEITIFG. 

long account of the publication and reception of "Hume's 
Treatise of Human Nature," with a very long extract from 
its conclusion. Lord Karnes wrote a well known book 
called the " Elements of Criticism," and therefore actually 
fifteen pages at once are filled with an extract from that 
book. "We have taken all due pains, but ineffectually, to 
reconcile ourselves to this mode of enlarging the size of a 
book by uninteresting letters, and indolent extracts. But 
even if a large work were constructed without this lazy 
expedient, and consisted almost wholly of the honest work- 
manship of the author, we have still an invincible dislike to 
the practice of pouring forth the miscellaneous stores of a 
common-place book, of relating the literary, the legal, the 
philosophical, and the political transactions of half a century, 
and of expending narrative and panegyric to a vast amount 
on a crowd of all sorts of people, under the form and pre- 
tence of recording the life of an individual. It is an obvious 
charge against this species of writing, that it can have no 
assignable limits, for as the object is undefinable, we can 
never be certain that it is gained ; and therefore the writer 
may go on adding volume to volume, still pretending that 
all this is necessary to his plan, till his whole stock of 
miscellaneous materials is exhausted ; and then he may tell 
us with a critical air of knowing what he is about, that he 
has executed, however imperfectly, the plan which he had 
considered as best adapted for doing justice to the interes- 
ting subject. Eut if instead of this he were to tell us, 
(perhaps on having found another drawerful of materials) 
that another volume was necessary for giving right propor- 
tions and a right conclusion to his work, we could not con- 
tradict him, because we should not know where to seek for 
the rules or principles by which to decide wliat would be a 
proper form or termination ; unless we were to refer the 
case to be settled by our patience, or our purse, according 
to which authorities in criticism, we may possibly have 
passed, a good way back, the chapter or paragraph, which 
appeared 7ery proper for a conclusion. Every work ought 
to have so far a specific object, that we can form some notion 
what materials are properly or improperly introduced, and 
within what compass the whole should be contained. Those 
works that disdain to recognize any standard of prescription 



MEMOIRS OF LORD KAMES. 67 

according to which books are appointed to be made, may 
fairly be regarded as outlaws of literature, which every prowl- 
ing reviewer has a right to fall upon wherever he finds them. 
Another serious objection against this practice of making 
a great book of a mass of materials so diverse that they have 
no natural connexion, and in such quantity that the slender 
narrative of an individual's life is insufficient to form an arti- 
ficial connexion, is, that it is extremely injurious to the good 
order of our intellectual arrangements ; as it accustoms the 
reader to that broken, immethodical, and discursive manner of 
thought which is preventive or destructive of the power both 
of prolonged attention and continuous reasoning. Just 
when a man has resolved, and possibly begun, to put his 
mind under severe discipline, in order to cure its rambling 
propensities, when he has perhaps vowed to do penance in 
mathematics for his mental dissipation, he is met by one 
meretricious pair of volumes after another, presenting all the 
seducing attractions of novelty, variety, facility of perusal, 
amusement somewhat dignified by an admixture of grave 
sense, and all this in an attire of the utmost elegance, from 
the type to the outside covering. The unfortunate sinner 
renounces his vows, throws away his mathematics, and 
becomes as abandoned a literary libertine as ever. If it be 
said, that a book thus composed, merits, at the most, no 
more serious accusation than merely that of its being a 
miscellany, and that we have many miscellanies and collec- 
tanea which are well received by the public, as a legitimate 
class of books ; we answer, yes, we have miscellanies and 
collectanea, without number, and they are a pest of literature ; 
they reduce our reading to a useless amusement, and pro- 
mote a vicious taste that nauseates the kind of reading 
which alone can supply well-ordered knowledge, and assist 
the attainment of a severe and comprehensive judgment. 
These heterogeneous productions drive away the regular 
treatises, the best auxiliaries of mental discipline, from the 
tables of both our male and female readers ; and the volumes 
of our Lockes, and Hartleys, and Eeids, are reduced to be- 
come a kind of fortifying wall to the territory of spiders, on 
the remotest and dustiest shelf in all the room. 

Against an assemblage of multifarious biography of dis- 
tinguished men, under the ostensible form of a record of the 

■f 2 



68 ON MEMOIK-WKITING. 

life of an individual, we have to observe that it has the 
fallacious effect of making that individual appear as always 
the king of the whole tribe. This would not be the effect, 
if merely so much were mentioned, concerning other eminent 
persons, as should be indispensable to the history of the one 
immediately in question. These short references might just 
give us an impression of the high rank of those other persons, 
and induce us to seek in the proper quarter for more ample 
information concerning them : they would be brought into 
no comparison with the person whose life is exclusively to 
be related. But when so much is said of them, that we seem 
to have a competent memoir of each, so that we do not 
want to inquire any further, and when all these memoirs 
together do not occupy so large a space as that filled by the 
chief personage, this individual comes to hold in our thoughts 
a magnitude superior to that of the rest, nearly in proportion 
to the ampler space he fills in the book. There is enough 
to bring them into comparison with him, and too little to 
illustrate and support their claims in that comparison; 
and they seem but assembled as bashaws round their Grand 
Turk. In the work before us, Lord Karnes appears (for we 
have been at pains, with the help of Erasmus's De copia ver- 
lorum et rerum, to find a nobler simile than the last), like 
Jupiter on the top of the Scottish Olympus, looking kindly, 
though majestically, down on the inferior personages of the 
worshipful assembly, such as Hume, Beid, Adam Smith, 
Millar, and many others. Lord Woodhouselee does not 
expressly proclaim the superiority, and perhaps no more did 
Mercury or Granymedes ; it is enough that Jupiter did, and 
that Lord Karnes does, sit on the most spacious throne. 
But then let us turn to the historian and eulogist of some 
other member of that great philosophic hierarchy, and the 
venerable order is strangely confounded and revolutionized ; 
Dr. Adam Smith, for instance, places David Hume on the 
proudest eminence, and Karnes, and all the rest of them, are 
made to know their places. This game of shifting dignities, 
this transferring of regal honours, must continue, till each 
panegyrist shall have the discretion to confine his work so 
much to an individual, as to avoid the invidiousness of con- 
stantly, in effect, running a parallel between him and his 
contemporaries. 



MEMOIES OF LORD KAMES. 69 

We also object to the telling, in the life of one man, of so 
much about the life, and works, and actions of another, 
because if the life of that other is likewise to be written, the 
biographer of the former actually forestalls or pilfers the 
materials which are wanted by the biographer of the latter. 
And thus the same thing is told twice, or, if but once, it is 
told in the wrong place. But it is certain to be told twice, 
for the trade of mutual borrowing, and mutual stealing, 
never throve better than among the biographers of the 
present day. 

In reading this, and .some late voluminous works, pur- 
porting to be the lives of particular persons, and in observing 
the multitude of memoirs of other persons appended or 
interwoven, we have earnestly wished, that each country, 
and especially North Britain, had been a good while since 
provided with a standard approved dictionary of all its names 
of any consequence ; with a sufficient quantity of information 
under each, and with a concise supplement regularly added 
every few years. In that case, the writer of a particular and 
eminently distinguished life, would not have needed, and could 
have had no pretext, to swell the bulk of his work with an 
account of every person, of the smallest note, whom be had 
occasion to mention, as contemporary, or in any manner con- 
nected, with the principal person, or even as having preceded 
him by years or centuries. We might then be referred, in 
one line, to the article in the dictionary, to be consulted at 
leisure, and go on, without circuit or interruption, with the 
main subject. We still wish this were done, with the utmost 
haste ; since we do not know how many more ponderous and 
costly works, like the present, may else come out, loaded 
with secondary subjects, and even with the substance of some 
of the very same articles which have encumbered this and 
recent publications. For making such a dictionary, it will 
be of service to consult these works of which we have com- 
plained, and extract from them several articles relating to 
persons of whom, though deserving of some notice, no infor- 
mation, as it should seem, may be found anywhere else. 
There is, for instance, in the book before us, a particular 
account of an obscure, but apparently an able man, of the 
name of Colin Maclaurin. It was a disappointment to us 



70 ON" MEMOIE-WEITING. 

not to see this followed by some account of Maclaurin's 
master, another obscure man of the name of Newton. 

Having thus honestly protested against this mode of 
raising a large and costly book by collecting a heap of 
heterogeneous materials, and having informed our readers 
that the life of Lord Karnes, though very long and busy, 
forms but a rather slight and arbitrary combination of the 
contents of these volumes, we must now express our opinion 
of the merit of these contents separately considered ; and 
produce some extracts illustrative of their quality. And 
we are prompt to testify, that in many instances their 
quality is high. Lord Woodhouselee is an able and prac- 
tised thinker, possessed of ample stores of learning and 
general knowledge, well acquainted with the history, the 
schools, and the questions of philosophy ; a discriminative 
judge of character, and writing in a style which we deem a 
finished example of what may be called transparent diction. 
It is so singularly lucid, so free from all affected rhetoric 
and artificial turns of phrase, so perfectly abstracted, with 
the exception of a law term or two, from every dialect 
appropriated to a particular subject, that we have never 
viewed thoughts through a purer medium. It is so pure 
and perfect, that we can read on a considerable way without 
our attention being arrested by the medium; it is as if 
there were nothing, if we may so express ourselves, between 
us and the thought. And we are made to think of the 
medium after some time, only by the reflection how very 
clearly we have apprehended the sense, even when relating 
to the uncouth subjects of the law, or the abstruse subjects 
of metaphysics. By this pure and graceful diction, we are 
beguiled along with the author, through several prolix and 
unnecessary details, without being indignant — tUl we are 
past them — that he should have occupied himself and us 
with things too inconsiderable to deserve a fifth part of the 
space they fill. 

"We have been greatly pleased and instructed by many of 
the reasonings on topics of philosophy, law, and criticism, 
the result of mature and comprehensive thought, and but 
very little tinctured by the peculiarities of any sect or 
school, though somewhat partial, of course, to the opinions 



I 



MEMOIES OF LOED KAMES. 71 

of Lord Karnes, who, in spite of the immense disparity of 
age, was the intimate friend of the author's younger years. 
Many of his observations and statements elucidate the 
history and progress of law, science, and literature in 
Scotland. "We have only to regret, that he had not elabo- 
rated his thoughts on these various subjects into a digested 
series of finished essays, instead of throwing them together 
in a mass, to swell beyond all reasonable bounds the import- 
ance of an individual. A great part of this matter might 
just as well have been appended to the life of any one of 
half a dozen other of the Scottish philosophers of the last 
century ; a proof of the impropriety of its being all incor- 
porated with the history of one. 

As to the letters to Lord Karnes, which constitute a 
material portion of the work, we have already said, that 
many of them ought to have been omitted. But a consider- 
able number are highly distinguished by sense or ingenuity ; 
we refer to several from Dr. Franklin, many from Mrs. 
Montague, one from Lord Chancellor Hardwicke on courts 
of equity, one or two from David Hume, and a few long 
ones, of great value, from Professor Walker and Dr. Eeid. 
The very long and intimate friendship with this last eminent 
philosopher, continued to the death of Lord Karnes. Their 
characters are thus amusingly contrasted by Mr. Dugald 
Stewart : — 

" With one very distinguished character, the late Lord Karnes, 
he (Dr. Eeid) lived in the most cordial and affectionate friend- 
ship, notwithstanding the avowed opposition of their sentiments 
on some moral questions to which he attached the greatest 
importance. Both of them, however, were the friends of virtue 
and of mankind ; and both were able to temper the warmth of 
free discussion with the forbearance and good-humour founded 
on mutual esteem. No two men, certainly, ever exhibited a more 
striking contrast in their conversation, or in their constitutional 
tempers : the one slow and cautious in his decisions, even on 
those topics which he had most diligently studied ; reserved 
and silent in promiscuous society ; and retaining, after all his 
literary eminence, the same simple and unassuming manners 
which he brought from his country residence : the other, lively 
rapid, and communicative ; accustomed by his professional 
pursuits, to wield with address the weapons of controversy, and 
not averse to a trial of his powers on questions the most foreign 



72 ON MEMOIK-WBITING. 

to his ordinary habits of inquiry. But these characteristical 
differences, while to their common friends, they lent an additional 
charm to the distinguishing merits of each, served only to 
enliven their social intercourse, and to cement their mutual 
attachment."— Vol II., p. 230. 

Their correspondence, and no doubt their conversations, 
were directed very much to the most abstruse questions of 
physical and metaphysical science. Indeed, we deem it 
honourable to Lord Karnes, that most of bis friendships 
appear to have been as laborious as they were sincere. 
The whole quantity of intellectual faculty existing among 
his friends was put in permanent requisition. And when 
he at any time heard of strong minds among his contem- 
poraries, beyond the circle of his acquaintance, it was not 
long before he was devising how to trepan them, as ele- 
phants are caught in the east, in order to make them work. 
He had all kinds of burdens ready for them, and no burden 
so light, that any of them, could frisk and gambol under it, 
in the wantoness of surperfluous strength. It was at their 
peril, that any of them showed signs of thinking little of 
the difficulty of a discussion in law or criticism ; they were 
sure to have a whole system of metaphysics laid on their 
backs at the next turn. Very early in life he commenced 
this plan, and thought himself on the point of catching one 
of the stoutest of the elephantine race. Dr. Clarke had 
some years before published his celebrated Demonstration of 
the Being and Attributes of God. Mr Home, at the age of 
twenty-seven, wrote him a long letter, proposing objections, 
and demanding new arguments and solutions. Its uncere- 
monious and almost presumptuous style, however, evinced 
a want of skill as yet in his inveigling art ; the device was 
too coarsely adjusted to trepan one of the most discerning 
of the giant species, who just stopped a few minutes in 
passing, tossed about with his trunk, as if in scorn of the de- 
sign, some, of the piles of materials with which it had been in- 
tended to load him, and then moved quietly off into the forest. 
— In simple language, Dr. Clarke wrote him a short, civil, 
and argumentative letter, and the correspondence went no 
further. 

Lord Karnes had always a very strong partiality to meta- 
physical studies ; and he evinced even in that letter to Dr. 



MEMOIES OF LOBD KAMES. 73 

Samuel Clarke, which we have already noticed with disap- 
probation of its spirit, an acuteness adapted to excel in 
abstract speculations. In first introducing him in the 
character of a philosopher, Lord Woodhouselee takes occa- 
sion to make some observations on the tendency and value 
of metaphysical researches. 

" Allowing them to be conversant about the noblest part of 
our frame, the nature and powers of the human soul ; and grant- 
ing that they give the most vigorous exercise to the understand- 
ing, by training the mind to an earnest and patient attention to 
its own operations ; still I fear it must be admitted, that as 
those abstract studies are beyond the limits of the faculties of 
the bulk of mankind, no conclusion thence derived can have 
much influence on human conduct. Even the anxiety shown by 
metaphysical writers to apologize for their favourite pursuits, 
by endeavouring, with great ingenuity, to deduce from them a 
few practical consequences with respect to life and manners, is. 
strong proof of the native infertility of the soil, on which so 
much labour is bestowed to produce so small a return. It is not 
much to the praise of this science, that the most subtle and in- 
genious spirits have, for above two thousand years, assiduously 
exercised themselves in its various subjects of discussion, and 
have not yet arrived at a set of fundamental principles on which 
the thinking world is agreed. Neither have the uses, to which 
this sort of reasoning has sometimes been applied, tended to 
enhance its estimation. The attempts that have been made to 
found morality on metaphysical principles, have for certain been 
prejudicial, on the whole, to the cause of virtue. The acutest of 
the sceptical writers, availing themselves of Mr. Locke's doctrine 
of the origin of ideas, and the consequences he has thence drawn 
respecting morals, have done much more harm by weakening 
our belief in the reality of moral distinctions, than the ablest of 
their opponents, combating them on the same ground, and 
with the same weapons, have found it possible to repair. The 
baneful industry of the former has, it is true, made the labours 
of the latter in some degree necessary, and therefore useful ; and 
it is in this point of view that the writings of those metaphysi- 
cians, who are antagonists of the sceptical philosophy, are 
entitled to attention and to praise." — Vol. i. p. 21. 

Such observations are of much weight as coming from a 
person so well versed in metaphysics. But it will b& impos- 
sible for the reader of these volumes to believe the author 
can mean to be very rigid in proscribing metaphysical study, 



74 ON METAPHYSICAL STUDIES. 

to which we can perceive that his clear understanding is in 
no small degree indebted. Nor will any enlightened man, 
we think, condemn, without great qualification, what is evi- 
dently the sublimest class of speculations, what demands the 
strongest mental powers, and their severest exertion, and 
makes a bold effort to reach, in some small degree, that kind 
of knowledge, or, if we may so speak, that mode of knowing, 
which perhaps forms the chief or peculiar intellectual dis- 
tinction between us and superior spirits. Metaphysical 
speculation tries to resolve all constituted things into* their 
general elements, and those elements into the ultimate mys- 
terious element of substance, thus leaving behind the various 
orders and modes of being, to contemplate being itself in its 
essence. It retires awhile from the consideration of truth, 
as predicated of particular subjects, to explore those unal- 
terable and universal relations of ideas, which must be the 
primary principles of all truth. It is not content to acknow- 
ledge or to seek the respective causes of the effects which 
crowd every part of the creation, but would ascertain the 
very nature of the relation between cause and effect. Not 
satisfied to infer a Deity from the wise and beautiful order 
of the universe, it would descry the proof of this sublime 
fact in the bare existence of an atom. To ascertain the laws 
according to which we think, is a gratifying kind of know- 
ledge, but metaphysical speculation asks what is it to think, 
and what is that power which performs so strange an opera- 
tion; it also attempts to discover the nature of the con- 
nexion of this mysterious agent with a corporeal machine ; 
and of the relation in which it really stands to that external 
world, concerning which it receives so many millions of 
ideas. In short, metaphysical inquiry attempts to trace 
things to the very first stage in which they can, even to the 
most penetrating intelligences, be the subjects of a thought, 
a doubt, or a proposition ; that profoundest abstraction, 
where they stand on the first step of distinction and remove 
from nonentity, and where that one question might be put 
concerning them, the answer to which would leave no further 
question possible. And having thus abstracted and pene- 
trated to the state of pure entity, the speculation would 
come back, tracing it into all its modes and relations ; till 
at last metaphysical truth, approaching nearer and nearer to 



MEMOrRF OF LOED EAMES. 75 

the sphere of our immediate knowledge, terminates on the 
confines of distinct sciences and obvious realities. 

Now, it would seem evident that this inquiry into primary 
truth must surpass, in point of dignity, all other specula- 
tions. If any man could carry his discoveries as far, and 
make his proofs as strong, in the metaphysical world, as 
Newton did in the physical, he would be an incomparably 
greater man than even Newton. The charge, therefore, of 
being frivolous, alleged sometimes angrily, and sometimes 
scornfully, against this department of study, is, so far as the 
subjects are concerned, but a proof of the complete igno- 
rance of those who make it. Ignorance may be allowed to 
say anything; but we are very much surprised, when we 
sometimes hear men of considerable thought and knowledge, 
declaring, almost unconditionally, against researches into 
pure metaphysical subjects ; and also insisting, that our 
reasonings on moral subjects must never, for a moment, 
accept the pernicious aid of metaphysical distinctions. "We 
cannot comprehend how it is possible for them to frequent 
the intellectual world, without often coming in view of some 
of the great questions peculiarly belonging to this depart- 
ment of thought ; such as those concerning the nature of 
the mind, the liberty or necessity of human action, the 
radical distinction between good and evil, space, duration, 
eternity, the creation of inferior beings, and the attributes 
of the Supreme. And we wonder that, if it were only to 
enjoy the sensation of being overwhelmed in sublime mys- 
tery, and of finding how much there is reserved to be learnt 
in a higher state of existence and intelligence, an inquisitive 
mind should not, when these subjects are forced on the 
view, make a strong, though it were a transient, effort of 
investigation. Nor can we conceive how a man of the least 
sagacity can deeply examine any moral subject, without 
often finding himself brought to the borders of metaphysical 
ground; and there perceiving very clearly that he must 
either enter on that ground, or leave his subject most par- 
tially and unsatisfactorily discussed. All subjects have first 
principles, toward which an acute mind feels its investiga- 
tion inevitably tending, and all first principles are, if inves- 
tigated to their extreme refinement, metaphysical. The 
tendency of thought toward the ascertaining of these first 



76 025" METAPHYSICAL STUDIES. 

principles in every inquiry, as contrasted with a disposition 
to pass (though perhaps very elegantly or rhetorically) over 
the surface of a subject, is one of the strongest points of 
distinction between a vigorous intellect and a feeble one. 

It is true enough, to the grief of philosophers, and the 
humiliation of human ability, that but a very small degree 
of direct success has ever crowned these profound researches, 
or perhaps will ever crown them in the present state of our 
existence. It is also true, that an acute man who will abso- 
lutely prosecute the metaphysic of every subject to the last 
possible extreme, with a kind of rebellion against the very 
laws and limits of nature, in contempt of his senses, of 
experience, of the universal perceptions of mankind, and of 
divine revelation, may reason himself into a vacuity where 
he will feel as if he were sinking out of the creation. Hume 
was such an example ; but we might cite Locke and Eeid, 
and some other illustrious men, who have terminated their 
long sweep of abstract thinking, as much in the spirit of 
sound sense and rational belief as they began. 

Yet while we must attribute to weakness or ignorance 
the contempt or the terror of these inquiries, it is so evident 
from the nature of things, and the whole history of philo- 
sophy, that they must in a great measure fail, when ex- 
tended beyond certain contracted limits, that it is less for 
the portion of direct metaphysical science which they can 
ascertain, than for their general effect on the thinking 
powers, that we deem them a valuable part of intellectual 
discipline. Studies of this nature tend very much to 
augment the power of discriminating clearly between 
different subjects, and ascertaining their analogies, depend- 
encies, relative importance, and best method of investiga- 
tion. They enable the mind to dissipate the delusion of 
first appearances, and detect fallacious subtleties of argu- 
ment. Between the most superficial view of a subject, and 
its most abstracted principles, there is a gradation of prin- 
ciples still more and more abstracted, conducting pro- 
gressively, if any mind were strong enough to follow, to 
that profoundest principle where inquiry must terminate 
for ever : now, though it be impossible to approach within 
the most distant glimmering sight of that principle, yet a 
mind sharpened by metaphysical investigation, will be able 






MEMOIES OF LOKD KAMES. 77 

sometimes to penetrate to the second, third, or fourth place 
in this retiring gradation, and will therefore have a far more 
competent understanding of the subject, from being able to 
investigate it to this depth, than another mind which has 
been accustomed to content itself with an attention merely 
to the superficies. A man habituated to this deeper ex- 
amination of every subject which he seriously thinks, will 
often be able, and entitled, to advance his propositions with 
a confidence to which the man that only thinks on the 
surface of a subject must be a stranger, unless indeed he 
can totally forget that there is anything deeper than the 
surface ; but then he may very fairly be excused from 
making any propositions at all. 

On the whole, we are of opinion, that though it is most 
unwise to dedicate the chief part of a studious life to 
metaphysical speculation, except in the case of those few 
extraordinary minds which can carry this speculation so far 
as to render to mankind the service of practically ascer- 
taining the limits which human ability cannot pass, a 
moderate portion of this study would be of the greatest 
use to all intellectual men, as a mode of acquiring, in the 
general exercise of their understandings, at once the double 
advantage of comprehensiveness and precision. 

"While, therefore, we are doing honour to abstract science, 
for the superior talents which it requires in the investigator, 
for the augmented powers which it confers in the progress 
of study, and for the elevating dignity which it bestows in 
the successful result, we are willing to remember, that after 
all it is but of subordinate importance. And we cannot 
help admiring the wisdom of that arrangement, by which 
nothing that is truly essential to the well-being of man is 
denied to the exertion of such powers as man generally 
possesses. The truths connected with piety and the social 
duties, with the means of personal happiness, and the 
method of securing an ulterior condition of progressive 
perfection and felicity, lie at the very surface of moral 
inquiries ; like the fruits and precious stores of the vegetable 
kingdom, they are necessary to supply inevitable wants, 
and are placed by Divine Benevolence, within the reach of 
the meanest individual. The secret treasures, however, of 
the moral, as of the physical world, lie deep and remote 



78 ON METAPHYSICAL STUDIES. 

from casual observation, and are only yielded up to a series 
of skilful and laborious efforts : they are indeed wonderful 
and splendid ; they may gratify the ambition of the curious 
and ostentatious, and they may denote the gradations of 
mental nobility ; they may even be applied to more useful 
purposes ; but they afford no substantial enjoyments, they 
constitute no part of the necessaries or comforts of exist- 
ence ; a man who wants them, may yet be happy, contented, 
and secure ; and he who possesses them in profusion, may 
glitter in the array of intellectual opulence, yet pine, and 
perish. 

About the middle of his life Lord Karnes became ac- 
quainted with David Hume, who was considerably younger 
than himself, and who was just then making a manful 
attempt for fame, and against religion, in the publication of 
his "Treatise of Human Nature." His letters, describing 
the views and feelings which possessed his mind at that 
time, and which he seems to have retained with little altera- 
tion through life, exhibit but a very mean moral picture of 
the man. The printing of his " Philosophical Essays," 
which Lord Karnes dissuaded, gave occasion for his lord- 
ship's full appearance before the public as a philosopher, in 
his " Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural 
Religion," in which he set himself to oppose the opinions of 
Hume. 

The intelligent reader will be anxious to meet with this 
book ; for he is given to expect that the author makes out a 
fine account of human nature, as a well-poised, well regu- 
lated, and most harmonious moral system. He must be 
curious to see in what manner he disposes of the stupendous 
depravity, which through all ages has covered the earth 
with crimes and miseries : and how he has illustrated the 
grand and happy effects resulting from the general and 
permanent predominance of the selfish over the benevolent 
affections, from the imbecility of reason and conscience as 
opposed to appetite, from the infinitely greater facility of 
forming and retaining bad habits than good ones, from' the 
incalculable number of false opinions embraced instead of 
the true, and from the depravation which is always found to 
steal very soon into the best institutions. He must, surely, 
be no less solicitous to see the dignity and certainty of 



MEMOIRS OF LORD KAMES. 79 

the moral sense verified in the face of the well-known fact, 
that there is no crime which has not, in the absence of 
revelation, been committed, in one part of the world or 
another, without the smallest consciousness of guilt. 

It is too evident that our philosopher felt it a light 
matter, that his speculations were sometimes in opposition 
to the book which Christians deem of paramount authority. 
He would pretend, in a general way, a kind of deference 
for that book, and yet go on with his theories and reason- 
ings all the same. In this we consider his conduct, and the 
conduct of many other philosophic men, as most absurd, 
setting aside its irreligion. The book which avows itself, 
by a thousand solemn and explicit declarations, to be a 
communication from heaven, is either what it thus declares 
itself to be, or a most monstrous imposture. If these phi- 
losophers hold it to be an imposture, and therefore an 
execrable deception put on the sense of mankind, how con- 
temptible it is to see them practising their civil cringe, and 
uttering phrases of deference. If they admit it to be what 
it avows itself, how detestable is their conduct in advancing 
positions and theories, with a cool disregard of the highest 
authority, confronting and contradicting them all the while. 
And if the question is deemed to be yet in suspense, how 
ridiculous it is to be thus building up speculations and 
systems, pending a cause which may require their demoli- 
tion the instant it is decided. Who would not despise or 
pity a man eagerly raising a fine house on a piece of ground 
at the very time in doubtful litigation ? "Who would not 
have laughed at a man, who should have published a book 
of geography, with minute descriptions, and costly maps, of 
distant regions and islands, at the very time that Magellan 
or Cook was absent on purpose to determine their position, 
or even verify their existence ? If Lord Karnes was doubt- 
ful on the question of the truth or imposture of the most 
celebrated book in the world, a question of which the deci- 
sion, the one way or the other, is the indispensable prelimi- 
nary to so many speculations, why did he not bend his 
utmost strength to decide it ? This had been a work of 
far more importance than any of those to which he applied 
himself ; of far more importance than his reasonings on the 
existence of a Deity, since the very object of these reasonings 



80 ON METAPHYSICAL STUDIES. 

was to prove that we have a natural, intuitive, and invincible 
assurance that there is a God, and therefore, in fact, that we 
need no reasoning or writing on the subject. Or, if he 
would not make an effort towards the decision of this great 
question himself, why would he not lie quiet, till the other 
examiners should decide it ; cautious, even to anxiety, not 
to hazard, in the meanwhile, a single position of such a 
nature as must assume that the question was already decided, 
and decided against the pretensions of the book professing 
to be of divine authority ? But such positions he made no 
difficulty of advancing, especially in what was called, at that 
time, his magnum op ^s, the "Sketches of the History of Man." 

The leading doctrine of this work appears to be that man 
was originally in the state of a most ignorant savage, and 
that all his knowledge and improvements subsequently 
attained, as well in morals and theology as in arts and 
sciences, have resulted from the progressive development of 
his natural powers by natural means : in this same work, 
notwithstanding, the author affected to pay some deference 
to the Mosaic history. This idle and irreligious notion was 
retained and cherished in spite of the able reasoning of Dr. 
Doig, of which Lord Woodhouselee gives a lucid abstract, 
followed by a curious account of the commencement of the 
acquaintance between Dr. Doig and Lord Karnes. 

The other distinguished literary performance of Lord 
Karnes, was the "Elements of Criticism." The biographer 
introduces his remarks on this work by a very curious 
inquiry into the history of philosophical criticism, the 
invention of which he attributes to the Scottish philo- 
sopher, after an acute examination of the claims of both the 
ancients and moderns. We are very much entertained by 
this ingenious investigation ; though Lord Woodbouselee's 
own acknowledgment of the near approaches to this species 
of criticism in one or two of the ancients, and the actual, 
though very imperfect development of it in several modern 
writers, especially Akenside, warrants our hesitation to 
assign to Lord Kames the title of inventor, which is 
wrested, by a rather nice distinction, from Aristotle. In 
the "Treatise of Rhetoric," Aristotle gave an elaborate 
analysis of the passions, and of the sources of pain and 
pleasure, expressly with a view to instruct writers and 






ON blair's life and writings. 81 

speakers how to interest those passions. If this was not 
actually deducing, it was making it easy for the persons so 
instructed to deduce, from the very constitution of the 
human mind, the essential laws of good writing and eloquent 
speaking. It was showing that excellence in these arts 
must consist in the adaptation of ail their performances to the 
principles of human nature. By thus illustrating the manner 
in which the human mind can be subjected to the powers of 
eloquence, Aristotle laid at least the foundation of philo- 
sophical criticism. It is true that this could not so strictly 
be called criticism till it should be carried a little further, 
till a number of precise inferences from this explication of 
the passions should be propounded, as laws of criticism, and 
these laws be formally applied to the productions of genius. 
But this was nearly a matter of course when the first great 
work of elucidating the passions was accomplished ; when 
the nature o# the materials was ascertained, it dictated at 
once the mode of operating on them. By a very slight 
change of form, each proposition relative to the passions 
might have been made a critical rule, applicable to its 
respective part of the works to be addressed to them. This 
had been a very slender effort for the great philosopher if 
he had chosen to pursue his subject so far ; and therefore it 
does not claim any very high degree of fame, if a modern 
has done what he omitted. We allow however to Lord 
Karnes " the merit of having given to philosophical criticism 
the form of a science, by reducing it to general principles, 
methodizing its doctrines and supporting them everywhere 
by the most copious and beautiful illustrations." 



ON BLAIE'S LIFE AND WHITINGS. 

An Account of the Life and Writings of Hugh Blair, D.D., 
F.&jS.K, one of the Ministers of the High Church, and Professor 
of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the University of Edinburgh 
By the late John Hill, LL.D., F.B.S.E., Professor of Hu- 
manity in the University. 8vo. 1807. 

There appears to be some cause for apprehension, lest 
the extravagant admiration once lavished on Dr. Blair should 



G- 



82 LETTERS ON RHETORIC. 

decline, by degrees, into a neglect that will withhold even 
common justice. JSTo productions so celebrated at first, as 
his sermons, have perhaps ever come in so short a time to 
be so nearly forgotten. Even before the conclusion of the 
series, the public enthusiasm and avidity had begun to lan- 
guish, and the last volume seemed only announced in order 
to attend the funeral of its predecessors. The once delighted 
readers excused the change of their taste by pretending, and 
perhaps believing, that a great disparity was observable be- 
tween the two prior volumes and those which followed them. 
The alleged inferiority might possibly exist in a certain 
degree ; but the altered feeling was in a much greater 
degree owing to the recovery of sober sense, from the tem- 
porary inebriation of novelty and fashion ; and the recovery 
was accompanied by a measure of that mortification, which 
seeks to be consoled by prompting a man to revenge himself 
on what has betrayed him into the folly. + 

As a critical writer, however, Dr. Blair has suffered much 
less from the lapse of years. His lectures have found their 
place and established their character among a highly respect- 
able rank of books, and will always be esteemed valuable as 
an exercise of correct taste, and an accumulation of good 
sense, on the various branches of the art of speaking and 
writing. It was not absolutely necessary they should bear 
the marks of genius, it was not indispensable that they 
should be richly ornamented ; but yet we can by no means 
agree with this biographer, that ornament would have been 
out of place, and that the dry style which prevails through- 
out the lectures is the perfection of excellence in writings 
on criticism. It has been often enough repeated, that such 
a bare thin style is the proper one for scientific disquisitions, 
of which the object is pure truth, and the instrument pure 
intellect: but, in general criticism, so much is to be done 
through the intervention of taste and imagination, that these 
faculties have a very great right to receive some tribute, of 
their own proper kind, from a writer who wishes to establish 
himself in their peculiar province. And the writings of 
Dryden, Addison, and Johnson, will amply show what graces 
may be imparted to critical subjects by a fine imagination, 
without in the least preventing or perplexing the due exer- 
cise of the reader's understanding. ¥e are not so absurd 



i 



on blaib's life and writings. 83 

as to reproach Dr. Blair for not having a fine imagination, 
but we must censure his panegyrist for attempting to turn 
this want into a merit. Philosophical criticism, indeed, like 
that of Lord Karnes and Dr. Campbell, which attempts to 
discover the abstract principles, rather than to illustrate the 
specific rules, of excellence in the fine arts, — and between 
the object of which, and of Dr. Blair's criticism, there is 
nearly the same difference as between the office of an anato- 
mist who dissects, or a chemist who decomposes beautiful 
forms, and an artist who looks at and delineates them — may 
do well to adhere to a plainer language ; but the biographer 
has judiciously withdrawn all claims, in behalf of Dr. Blair, 
to the character of a philosophical critic. He has acknow- 
ledged and even exposed the slightness of the professor's 
observations on the formation of language. He has not, 
however, said one word of the irreligious inconsistency and 
folly of professing a zealous adherence to revelation, and at 
the same time, labouring to deduce the very existence of 
language, in a very slow progress, from inarticulate noises, 
the grand original element of speech, as it seems, among the 
primaeval gentlefolk, at the time when they went on all-four, 
and grubbed up roots, and picked up acorns. Our readers 
will remember the happy ridicule of a part of this theory, in 
one of Cowper's letters, in which he humorously teaches one 
of these clever savages to make the sentence, " Oh, give me 
apple."* They may find the system ably and argumenta- 
tively exploded in Bousseau's " Discourse on the Inequality 
of Mankind." While this part of the lectures is given up 
to deserved neglect, we think the work will, on the whole, 
always maintain its character, as a comprehensive body of 
sensible criticism, and of very valuable directions in the art 
of writing. We agree with this biographer, in admiring 
especially the lectures on the subject of style. 

But it is rather on the unrivalled excellence of the ser- 
mons that Dr. Hill seems inclined to found the assurance of 
Dr. Blair's celebrity in future times. In order to persuade 
ourselves into the same opinion, we have been reading some 
of the most noted of those performances. And they possess 
some obvious merits of which no reader can be insensible. 

* To the Rev. W. Unwin, April 5, 1734. (Vol. v. p. 22. Southey's 
1st Edit.) 

G 2 



84 STYLE OF HIS SERMONS. 

The first is, perhaps, that they are not too long. It is not 
impertinent to specify the first, because we can put it to 
the consciences of our readers, whether, in opening a volume 
of sermons, their first point of inspection relative to any one 
which they are inclined to choose for its text or title, is not 
to ascertain the length ? The next recommendation of the 
doctor's sermons, is a very suitable, though scarcely ever 
striking, introduction, which leads directly to the business, 
and opens into a very plain and lucid distribution of the 
subject. Another is a correct and perspicuous language ; 
and it is to be added, that the ideas are almost always strictly 
pertinent to the subject. This, however, forms but a very 
small part of the applause, which was bestowed on these 
sermons during the transient day of their fame. They were 
then considered by many as examples of true eloquence ; a 
distinction never perhaps attributed, in any other instance, 
to performances marked by such palpable deficiencies and 
faults. 

In the first place, with respect to the language, though 
the selection of words is proper enough, the arrangement of 
them in the sentence is often in the utmost degree stiff and 
artificial. It is hardly possible to depart further from any 
resemblance to what is called a living, or spoken style, which 
is the proper diction at all events for popular addresses, if 
not for all the departments of prose composition. Instead 
of the thought throwing itself into words, by a free, instan- 
taneous, and almost unconscious action, and passing off in 
that easy form, it is pretty apparent there was a good deal 
of handicraft employed in getting ready proper cases and 
trusses, of various but carefully measured lengths and figures, 
to put the thoughts into, as they came out, in very slow 
succession, each of them cooled and stiffened to numbness 
in waiting so long to be dressed. Take, for example, such 
sentences as these : " Great has been the corruption of the 
world in every age. Sufficient ground there is for the com- 
plaints made by serious observers, at all times, of abounding 
iniquity and folly." " For rarely, or never, is old age con- 
temned, unless when, by vice or folly, it renders itself con- 
temptible." " Vain, nay often dangerous, were youthful 
enterprises, if not conducted by aged prudence." " If, dead 
to these calls, you a 1 /eady languish in slothful inaction," &c. 



on blaie's life and writings. 85 

" Smiling very often is the aspect, and smooth are the words 
of those who inwardly are the most ready to think evil of 
others." " Exempt, on the one hand, from the dark jealousy 
of a suspicious mind, it is no less removed, on the other, 
from that easy credulity which," &c. " Formidable, I admit, 
this may justly render it to them who have no inward fund," 
&c. " Though such employments of fancy come not under 
the same description with those which are plainly criminal, 
yet wholly unblamable they seldom are." " "With less 
external majesty it was attended, but is, on that account, 
the more wonderful, that under an appearance so simple, 
such great events were covered." 

There is also a perpetual recurrence of a form of the sen- 
tence, which might be occasionally graceful, or tolerable, 
when very sparingly adopted, but is extremely unpleasing 
when it comes often ; we mean that construction in which 
the quality or condition of the agent or subject, is expressed 
first, and the agent or subject is put to bring up the latter 
clause. For instance : " Pampered by continual indulgence, 
all our passions will become mutinous and headstrong." 
" Practised in the ways of men, they are apt to be suspicious 
of design and fraud," &c. " Injured or oppressed by the 
world, he looks up to a Judge who will vindicate his cause." 

In the second place, there is no texture in the composi- 
tion. The sentences appear often like a series of little 
independent propositions, each satisfied with its own distinct 
meaning, and capable of being placed in a different part of 
the train, without injury to any" mutual connexion, or ulti- 
mate purpose, of the thoughts. The ideas relate to the 
subject generally, without specifically relating to one ano- 
ther. They all, if we may so speak, gravitate to one centre, 
but have no mutual attraction among themselves. The 
mind must often dismiss entirely the idea in one sentence, 
in order to proceed to that in the next ; instead of feeling 
that the second, though distinct, yet necessarily retains the 
first still in mind, and partly derives its force from it ; and 
that they both contribute, in connexion with several more 
sentences, to form a grand complex scheme of thought, each 
of them producing a far greater effect, as a part of the com- 
bination, than it would have done as a little thought stand- 
ing alone. The consequence of this defect is, that the 



86 STYLE OE HIS SERMONS. 

emphasis of the sentiment and the crisis or conclusion of 
the argument comes nowhere ; since it cannot be in any 
single insulated thought, and there is not mutual depend- 
ence and co-operation enough to produce any combined 
result. Nothing is proved, nothing is enforced, nothing is 
taught, by a mere accumulation of self-evident propositions, 
most of which are necessarily trite, and some of which, when 
they are so many, must be trivial. With a few exceptions, 
this appears to us to be the character of these sermons. 
The sermon, perhaps, most deserving to be excepted, is that 
" On the Importance of Religious Knowledge to Mankind," 
which exhibits a respectable degree of concatenation of 
thought, and deduction of argument. It would seem as if 
Dr. Blair had been a little aware of this defect, as there is 
an occasional appearance of remedial contrivance ; he has 
sometimes inserted the logical signs for and since, when the 
connexion or dependence is really so very slight or unim- 
portant that they might nearly as well be left out. 

If, in the next place, we were to remark on the figures 
introduced in the course of these sermons, we presume we 
should have every reader's concurrence that they are, for 
the most part, singularly trite ; so much so, that the volumes 
might be taken, more properly than any other modern book 
that we know, as comprising the whole common-places of 
imagery. A considerable portion of the produce of imagi- 
nation was deemed an indispensable ingredient of eloquence, 
and the quota was therefore to be had in any way and of 
any kind. But the guilt of plagiarism was effectually 
avoided, by taking a portion of what society had long agreed 
to consider as made common and free to all. "When occa- 
sionally there occurs a simile or metaphor of the writer's 
own production, it is adjusted with an artificial nicety, bear- 
ing a little resemblance to the labour and finish we some- 
times see bestowed on the tricking out of an only child. It 
should, at the same time, be allowed, that the consistency of 
the figures, whether common or unusual, is in general accu- 
rately preserved. The reader will be taught, however, not 
to reckon on this as a certainty. We have just opened on 
the following sentence : " Death is the gate which, at the 
same time that it closes on this world, opens into eternity." 
(Sermon on Death.) We cannot comprehend the construe- 



ON blair's life and waitings. 87 

tion and movement of such a gate, unless it is like that 
which we sometimes see in place of a stile, playing loose in 
a space between two posts ; and we can hardly think so 
humble an object could be in the author's mind, while think- 
ing of the passage to another world. 

With respect to the general power of thinking displayed 
in these sermons, we apprehend that discerning readers are 
coming fast towards an uniformity of opinion. They will all 
cheerfully agree that the author carries good sense along 
with hiin, wherever he goes ; that he keeps his subjects dis- 
tinct ; that he never wanders from the one in hand ; that he 
presents concisely very many important lessons of sound 
morality ; and that in doing this he displays an uncommon 
knowledge of the more obvious qualities of human nature. 
He is never trifling nor fantastic ; every page is sober, and 
pertinent to the subject ; and resolute labour has prevented 
him from ever falling in a mortifying degree below the level 
of his best style of performance. He is seldom below a 
respectable mediocrity, but, we are forced to admit, that he 
very rarely rises above it. After reading five or six sermons 
we become assured, that we most perfectly see the whole 
compass and reach of his powers, and that, if there were 
twenty volumes, we might read on through the whole, with- 
out ever coming to a bold conception, or a profound investi- 
gation, or a burst of genuine enthusiasm. There is not in 
the train of thought a succession of eminences and depres- 
sions, rising towards sublimity, and descending into fami- 
liarity. There are no peculiarly striking short passages 
where the mind wishes to stop awhile, to indulge its delight, 
if it were not irresistibly carried forward by the rapidity of 
the thought. There are none of those happy reflections 
back on a thought just departing, which seem to give it a 
second and a stronger significance, in addition to that which 
it had most obviously presented. Though the mind does 
not proceed with any eagerness to what is to come, it is 
seldom inclined to revert to what is gone by ; and any con- 
trivance in the composition to tempt it to look back with 
lingering partiality to the receding ideas, is forborne by the 
writer, — quite judiciously, for the temptation would fail. 

A reflective reader will perceive his mind fixed in a won- 
derful sameness of feeling throughout a whole volume : it is 



88 DEFECTS OE HIS SEKMONS. 

hardly relieved a moment, by surprise, delight, or labour, 
and at length becomes very tiresome; perhaps a little 
analogous to the sensations of a Hindoo while fulfilling his 
vow, to remain in one certain posture for a month. A 
sedate formality of manner is invariably kept up through a 
thousand pages, without the smallest danger of ever luxuri- 
ating into a beautiful irregularity, We never find ourselves 
in the midst of any thing that reminds us of nature, except 
by that orderly stiffness which she forswears, or of freedom, 
except by being compelled to go in the measured paces of a 
dull procession. If we manfully persist in reading on, we 
at length feel a torpor invading our faculties, we become 
apprehensive that some wizard is about turning us into 
stones, and we can break the spell only by shutting the 
book. Having shut the book we feel that we have acquired 
no definable addition to our ideas ; we have little more than 
the consciousness of having passed along through a very 
regular series of sentences and unexceptionable propositions ; 
much in the same manner as perhaps, at another hour of 
the same day, we have the consciousness or remembrance of 
having just passed along by a very regular painted pallisade, 
no one bar of which particularly fixed our attention, and the 
whole of which we shall soon forget that we have ever seen. 
The last fault that we shall allege, is some defect on the 
ground of religion ; not a deficiency of general seriousness, 
nor an infrequency of reference to the most solemn subjects, 
nor an omission of stating sometimes, in explicit terms, the 
leading principles of the theory of the Christian redemption. 
But we repeatedly find cause to complain that, in other 
parts of the sermon, he appears to forget these statements, 
and advances propositions which, unless the reader shall 
combine with them modifications which the author has not 
suggested, must contradict the principles. On occasions, 
he clearly deduces from the death and atonement of Christ, 
the hopes of futurity, and consolations against the fear of 
death ; and then, at other times, he seems most cautious to 
avoid this grand topic, when adverting to the approach of 
death, and the feelings of that season ; and seems to rest all 
the consolations on the review of a virtuous life. "We have 
sometimes to charge him also with a certain adulteration of 
the Christian moral principles, by the admixture of a portion 






OX BLAITt's LIFE AND WRITINGS. 89 

of the wordly spirit. As a friend to Christianity, he wished 
her to be a little less harsh and peculiar than in her earlier 
days, and to show that she had not lived so long in the 
genteelest world in the creation, without learning politeness. 
Especially it was necessary for her to exercise due complai- 
sance when she attended him, if she felt any concern about 
his reputation, as a companion of the fashionable, the 
sceptical, the learned, and the affluent, and a preacher to the 
most splendid congregation in the whole country. It 
would seem that she meekly took these delicate hints, and 
adopted a language which no gentleman could be ashamed 
to repeat, or offended to hear. The sermons abound with 
specimens of this improved dialect, but we cannot be sup- 
posed to have room here for quotations ; we will only 
transcribe a single short sentence from the Sermon on 
Death: "Wherever religion, virtue, or true honour call 
him forth to danger, life ought to be hazarded without fear." 
(Vol. ii. p. 224.) Now what is the meaning of the word 
"honour," evidently here employed to denote something 
distinct from virtue, and therefore not cognizable by the 
laws of morality ? Does the reverend orator mean, that to 
gain fame or glory, as it is called, or to avert the imputation 
or suspicion of cowardice, or to maintain some trivial punc- 
tilio of precedence or arrogant demand of pride, commonly 
called a point of honour, between individuals or nations, or 
to abet, as a matter of course, any cause rendered honourable 
by being adopted by the higher classes of mankind, — a 
Christian ought to hazard his life ? Taken as the ground 
of the most awful duty to which a human being can be 
called, and yet thus distinguished from religion and morality, 
what the term means can be nothing good. The preacher 
did not, perhaps, exactly know what he intended it to mean ; 
but it was a term in high vogue, and therefore well adapted 
to be put along with religion and virtue to qualify their 
uncouthness. It was no mean proof of address to have 
made these two surly puritans accept their sparkish com- 
panion. If this passage were one among only a few 
specimens of a dubious language, it would be scandalous in 
us to quote it in this particular manner ; but as there are 
very many phrases cast after a similar model, we have a 
right to cite it, as an instance of that tincture of the un- 



90 CAUSES OF HIS POPULARITY. 

sound maxims of the world, which we have asserted to be 
often perceptible in these sermons. This might be all in its 
place in the sermons of the despicable Torick; but it is- 
disgusting to hear a very grave divine blending, with Chris- 
tian exhortations, the loathsome slang of duelling lieutenants, 
of gamblers, of scoifers at religion, of consequential -fools 
who believe their own reputation the most important thing 
on earth, and indeed that the earth has nothing else to attend 
to, and of men whose rant about perhaps the glory of dying 
for their country, is mixed with insults to the Almighty, and 
imprecations of perdition on their souls. 

This doubtful and accommodating quality was one of the 
chief causes, we apprehend, of the first extraordinary 
popularity of these sermons. A great many people of gaiety, 
rank, and fashion, have occasionally a feeling that a little 
easy quantity of -religion would be a good thing ; because it 
is too true, after all, that we cannot be staying in this world 
always, and when one goes out of it, why, there may be 
some hardish matters to settle in the other place. The 
prayer-book of a Sunday is a good deal to be sure toward 
making all safe, but then it is really so tiresome ; for penance 
it is very well, but to say one likes it, one cannot for the life 
of one. If there were some tolerable religious thing that 
one could read now and then without trouble, and think it 
about half as pleasant as a game of cards, it would be com- 
fortable. One should not be so frightened about what we 
must all come to some time. — Now nothing could have been 
more to the purpose than these sermons ; they were wel- 
comed as the very thing. They were unquestionably about 
religion, and grave enough in all conscience ; yet they were 
elegant ; they were so easy to comprehend throughout, that 
the mind was never detained a moment to think ; they were 
undefiled by Methodism ; they but little obtruded peculiar 
doctrinal notions ; they applied very much to high life, and 
the author was evidently a gentleman ; the book could be 
discussed as a matter of taste, and its being seen in the 
parlour excited no surmise that any one in the house had 
been lately converted. Above all, it was most perfectly free 
from that disagreeable and mischievous property attributed 
to the eloquence of Pericles, that it "left stings behind." 

"With these recommendations, aided by the author's repu- 



BIAXEt's LIEE AFD WRITINGS. 91 

tation as an elegant critic, and by his aqnaintance with per- 
sons of the highest note, the book became fashionable ; it was 
circulated that Lord Mansfield had read some of the sermons 
to their Majesties ; peers and peeresses without number were 
cited, as having read and admired ; till at last it was al- 
most ~a mark of vulgarity not to have read them, and many a 
lie was told to escape this imputation, by persons who had 
not yet enjoyed the advantage. Grave elderly ministers of 
much severer religious views than Dr. Blair, were, in sincere 
benevolence, glad that a work had appeared, which gave a 
chance for religion to make itself heard among the dissipated 
and the great, to whom ordinary sermons, and less polished 
treatises of piety, could never find access. Dainty young 
sprigs of theology, together with divers hopeful young men 
and maidens, were rejoiced to find that Christian truth could 
be attired in a much nicer garb than that in which it was 
exhibited in Beveridge, or in the Morning Exercises at Crip- 
plegate. 

If the huzzahs attending the triumphal entry of these ser» 
mons had not been quite so loud, the present silence concern- 
ing them might not have appeared quite so profound. And 
if there had been a little more vigour in the thought, and 
any thing like nature and ease in the language, they might 
have emerged again into a respectable and permanent share 
of public esteem. But as the case stands, we think they are 
gone or going irrevocably to the vault of theCapulets. Such 
a deficiency of ratiocination, combined with such a total want 
of original conception, is in any book incompatible with its 
staying long in the land of the living. And, as to the style, 
also, of these performances, there were not wanting, even in 
the hey-day and riot of their popularity, some doctors, cun- 
ning in such matters, who thought the dead monotony of'the 
expression symptomatic of a disease that must end fatally. 

"We should apologize to our readers for having gone on 
thus far with our remarks, without coming to the work which 
has given the occasion for introducing them. 

This volume has disappointed our expectation of finding a 
particular account of the Life of Dr. Blair, enlivened with 
anecdotes illustrative of his character. Nearly half of it is 
occupied not in criticizing, but actually in epitomizing, the 
Doctor's writings, a labour of which it is impossible to com- 



92 INFLATED STYLE. 

prebend the necessity or use, except to make up a handsome- 
looking volume. Several of the most noted of the sermons 
are individually dissected, in a tedious manner, and compared 
with several of the sermons on the same subjects, in the vol- 
umes of some of the celebrated French preacbers, but with- 
out any critical remarks of consequence. The other half of 
the book does relate mainly to the man himself, but is writ- 
ten much more in the manner of a formal academical eulogy, 
than of any thing like a lively and simple memoir. It is not 
florid, but it is as set and artificial as the composition of Dr. 
Blair himself; and indeed seems a very good imitation, or, 
at least, resemblance. Except in the acknowledgment of 
one or two slight weaknesses, as we are taught to deem them, 
in the Doctor's character, it is a piece of laboured and un- 
varied panegyric, carried on from page to page, with a 
gravity which becomes at length perfectly ludicrous. Hardlv 
one circumstance is told in the language of simple narrative"; 
every sentence is set to the task of applause. Even Dr. 
Blair himself, whose vanity was extreme, would have been 
almost satisfied, if such an exhibition of his qualities and 
talents had been written in time to have been placed in his 
view. 

To avoid several pages of extracts, we must remark, that 
Dr. Blair was something of a beau, and very fond of novel- 
reading. Every reader will be surprised and provoked to 
find so very small a share of personal history. It is well 
known that we are not in general to look for many incidents 
and adventures in the life of a scholar and clergyman; but 
we should have supposed that a period of eighty-three years 
might have furnished more matters of fact than what could 
be comprised in a quarter of that number of pages. Those 
which are here afforded, consist of little beside the notice 
and dates of the two or three more obscure preferments of Dr. 
Blair, on his road to what is described the summit of ecclesi- 
astical success and honour, the High Church of Edinburgh ; 
his appointment as Professor of Belles Lettres ; his failure 
of being placed in the situation of Principal of the Universi- 
ty of Edinburgh, which he expected to receive from the pure 
gratitude and admiration of his country, without any solici- 
tation ; and, the important circumstance of preachiughis last 
sermon. This circumstance will be henceforward inserted, 



on blair's life and writings. 93 

we trust, with its precise date, in all chronicles of the mem- 
orable things of past times ; for it is enlarged on here, as if 
it had been one of the most momentous events of the century. 
He died December 27th, 1800, in the eighty -third year of 
his age, and the fifty -ninth of his ministry. 

The Doctor's successful progress through life was on the 
whole adapted to gratify, one should think almost to satiety, 
that love of fame which his biographer declares, in so many 
words, to have been his ruling passion ; nor had the passion 
which, Dr. Hill does not say, was second in command, the 
love of money, any great cause to complain. 

We sincerely wish to persuade ourselves that, with all his 
labour of encomium, this Dr. Hill has done less than justice 
tohis subject. For if we are totake his representation as acurate 
and complete, we have the melancholy spectacle of a preacher 
of religion, whose grand and uniform object in all his labours 
was advancement in the world. This is clearly the only view 
in which his admiring friend contemplates those labours. 
The preacher's success is constantly dwelt on with delight ; 
but this success always refers to himself, and his own worldly 
interests, not to any religious influence exerted on the minds 
of his inferior, and afterwards, his splendid, auditories. His 
evangelical office is regarded as merely a professional thing, 
in which it was his happiness to surpass his competitors, to 
attain the highest reputation, to be placed in a conspicuous 
station, to obtain a comparative affluence, to be most sump- 
tuously flattered by the great, and to be the intimate friend 
of Hume, Smith, Home, Ferguson, and Hobertson. There 
is hardly a word that attributes to the admired preacher any 
concern about promoting the Christian cause, the kingdom 
of Christ, or the conversion of wicked men, — in short, any 
one of those sublime objects for which alone the first mag- 
nanimous promulgators of Christianity preached, and labour- 
ed, and suffered. It is easy to see that, though Dr. Blair's 
reputed eloquence had been made the means of imparting 
the light, and sanctity, and felicity, of religion, to ten 
thousand poor wicked peasants, yet if he had not sought and 
acquired high distinction in polished society, his learned 
biographer would have been utterly disinclined to celebrate 
him, as deeming him either a grovelling spirit, incapable of 
aiming at a high object, or the victim of malignant stars that 



94 CHURCH PATRONAGE. 

forbade him to attain it. "We could make plenty of citations 
to acquit ourselves of injustice in this representation ; there 
are many passages of a quality similar to the following : — 

" His Lordship (Chief Baron Orde) in his official capacity, was 
a regular hearer of the Doctor's sermons, while his court sat, and 
there was no one better qualified to judge of the preacher's 
merit. This merit, too, was never more conspicuous than when 
it was honoured with the approbation of the venerable Judge. 
Dr. Blair's literary reputation w • there thoroughly established. 
And the unwearied labour he underwent in his closet, while 
composing his sermons, was repaid by the admiration of a dis- 
cerning audience." — p. 187. 

The Doctor is commonly reputed to have had a tolerably 
sufficient attachment to pelf. He might have higher 
motives for clinging so fast to the patronage of Lord Melville, 
but it is irksome to hear of his being " so much indebted to 
that patron's munificence," with the addition of the fulsome 
cant that, " every favour which he received (from this patron) 
was mult a dantis cum laude, and did honour to the hand 
that bestowed it." This patron is presumed to have been 
at the bottom of the pension of 200Z. granted from the public 
treasury. 

fn reading so many things about patronage, and munifi- 
cence, and protection, and advancement, and success, it 
cannot fail to occur to any reader of sense to ask, with a 
sentiment very indignant in one reference, or very compas- 
sionate in the other — If all this was necessary to Dr. Blair, 
with a very small family, and with all the internal means 
attributed to him of advancing his interests, what is to 
become of ever so many hundred hapless clergymen, in 
Scotland and elsewhere, who have large families, slender 
livings, and no General Frazers, Chief Barons, and Lord 
Melvilles to "protect" them, no means of getting into the 
High Church of Edinburgh, no chance of attracting the 
notice of Royalty, and a pension of £200, and no hope of 
collecting tribute by means of a literary reputation " extend- 
ing beyond the bounds of the British empire ?" 



95 



ON DAYID HUME. 

Account of the Life and Writings of David Hume, Esq. By Thomas 
Edward Eitchie. 8vo. 1808. 

This is by no means so ample a memoir as the number of 
pages would seem to indicate. The last eighty pages are 
occupied with Hume's publication in French, relative to the 
affair with Rousseau; a translation of this pamphlet is 
inserted in the narrative, accompanied by several additional 
letters on the same business, and engrossing more than a 
hundred pages; and about one hundred and thirty pages 
are filled with criticism on Hume's writings, eight pages 
that were printed in the first edition of his " Essays," but 
in the later ones omitted by the author, and a critique on 
"Wilkie's "Epigoniad," sent by Hume to the " Critical Ee view." 
Much less than half the book, therefore, is occupied with 
what is strictly biographical, even if we include a consider- 
able number of his letters to some of his distinguished 
friends, especially Dr. Eobertson. In so much of the volume 
as we owe to the pen of Mr. Eitchie, we do not find occasion 
for any great measure of either praise or blame. It is 
written with perspicuity, in a style not clumsy, but not 
remarkable for elegance. The detail of the few events of 
Hume's life would be sufficiently orderly, if there appeared 
less eagerness to seize and dilate every circumstance that 
can be introduced as an episode. A character of sense and 
independence is visible throughout ; and the present is one 
of the very few biographers who are free from the weakness 
of enthusiastically admiring, or the hypocrisy of affecting so 
to admire, the mixed and imperfect subject of their pages. 
If he could have brought himself to the obsequiousness of 
promising to laud his subject up to the pitch of eulogy 
which would have gratified the delicate ears of Hume's 
living relations, he might have been enabled to supply a great 
deficiency of information respecting the early years and 
habits of the philosopher ; but we are compelled to approve 
the independent conduct described in the note at page 4. 

" In the hope of being enabled to fill up any chasm in this 
narrative, I applied to a near relation of Mr. Hume, and was 



96 DAVID HUME. 

told, that if the work was to advance his fame, and a copy 
of the manuscript furnished to the family, the information 
wanted would, perhaps, be supplied. With such conditions I 
refused compliance, choosing rather to remain satisfied with the 
little I had otherwise obtained, than to fetter my sentiments, and 
subject myself to so laborious a task, in return for what was 
probably of little importance." 

In the narrative part, great use is necessarily made of 
Hume's own memoir, called " My Own Life," with the addi- 
tion of Dr. Smith's details of the circumstances which 
preceded the exit. This is followed by a general estimate 
of Hume, as a metaphysician, a moralist, a writer on general 
policy, and a historian. It is a brief review of all his 
writings, and evinces a good share of acuteness and know- 
ledge. The last eighteen pages of this review are filled 
with a curious collection of sentences from the " History of 
England," as they stand corrected in the later editions, 
compared with the same sentences of the first edition, which 
are placed in an opposite column, with here and there a 
suggestion from Mr. Kitchie of still further corrections, 
wanted in some of these sentences. It would not seem that 
Mr. Hume's composition can pretend to high merit on the 
ground of correctness. 

It is not the biographer's fault that Hume's life furnished 
but a singularly meagre and uninteresting detail. It is 
carious to think how many thousands of his contemporaries 
whose names are forgotten, would have supplied each a far 
more animated and. entertaining narrative. The story of 
many a common soldier or sailor, many a highwayman, many 
a gipsy, many a deserted child, and many a beggar, would 
have kept awake the attention which is much inclined to 
slumber over an account of this celebrated philosopher. — 
He was born at Edinburgh in 1711. There was some unde- 
fined quantity of nobility in the blood of his ancestors on 
both sides, and therefore we suppose in his own, of which 
he is said to have been always extremely vain. "We are told, 
" the juvenile years of Hume were not marked by anything 
which can attract our notice. His father died while our 
historian was an infant, and left the care of him, his elder 
brother Joseph, and sister Catharine, to their mother, who, 
although in the bloom of life, devoted herself to the educa- 



TBEATISE ON HUMAN NATUBE. 97 

tion of her children with laudable assiduity." He went to 
school and to college, was designed by his friends for the law, 
but was often guilty of slyly stealing from the lectures of 
his venerable tutors, Voet and Vinnius, into the much more 
dashing company of Cicero and Virgil. These gentlemen 
had certainly taken care to make their own fortunes, in their 
day ; but their harangues and hexameters were of so little 
service to that of their admirer, which had no broader basis 
than the patrimony of a Scottish younger brother, that he 
determined to enter on some commercial pursuit. He there- 
fore left the citizens of Rome, and went to try his skill 
among those of Bristol ; but finding himself after a few 
months, totally unequal to the bustle incident to a mercantile 
situation, he abandoned the attempt, and went to France. 
Thence he returned to London in 1737, and, in the following 
year, published his " Treatise of Human Nature." 

Under the profession of showing what qualifications are 
requisite for the satisfactory performance of such a work as 
this pretends to be, Mr. Eitchie has given a sketch of the 
history of philosophy, or rather a catalogue of philosophers, 
from Plato to Hume. But we do not exactly comprehend 
the design of this, unless he means to be understood, that 
to be able to indite a philosophical treatise on human nature, 
the writer must have studied all that has ever been written, 
by all the philosophers of ancient and modern times. "We 
co aid certainly wish that Hume had deemed this an indis- 
pensable pre-requisite to the privilege of writing and vending 
his own sceptical cogitations ; but it is too evident that none 
of the infidel philosophers have ever had the conscience to 
acknowledge the obligation of this preliminary duty. This 
enumeration of distinguished names ends with a real 
curiosity, a list of about a sixth part, as the author believes, 
of " the commentators and scholiasts on Aristotle's philo- 
sophical works," which accumulates the titles of books 
containing, in all, a quantity of writing which would have 
amounted to several hundred quarto volumes. 

It is well known, from Hume's own acknowledgment, 
that this his first performance was utterly neglected by the 
public. In making the acknowledgment, he praises the 
equanimity which he maintained on the occasion, and the 
facility with which his cheerful and sanguine temper 



98 DAVID HUME. 

returned to the habit of animation and hope. Mr. Eitchie 
has in his text consented to say the same thing, but has 
subjoined a note which gives another representation of the 
philosopher's patience and tranquillity. 

"In the 'London Review,' vol. v. p. 200 (anno 1777), edited 
by Dr. Kenrick, there is a note on this passage in our author's 
biographical narrative, rather inimical to the amenity of dis- 
position claimed by him. The reviewer says, — 'So sanguine, 
that it does not appear our author had acquired, at this period of 
his life, that command over his passions of which he afterwards 
makes his boast. His disappointment at the public reception of his 
" Essay on Human Nature," had indeed a violent effect on his 
passions in a particular instance : it not having dropped so dead- 
horn from the press, but that it was severely handled by the 
reviewers of those times, in a publication entitled, The Works of 
the Learned; a circumstance which so highly provoked our 
young philosopher, that he flew in a violent rage to demand satis- 
faction of Jacob Robinson, the publisher, whom he kept, during 
the paroxysm of his anger at his sword's point, trembling behind 
the counter, lest a period should be put to the life of a sober 
critic by a raving philosopher. " 

The repugnance of mankind to receive instruction should 
not deter an enlightened and benevolent man who may 
have failed in the first effort, from soliciting their attention 
again, and holding up salutary truths afresh to their view. 
Mr. Hume displayed in a high degree this generons per- 
severance. Having endeavoured to explain to an ungrate- 
ful and indocile nation, that there is a wonderful difference 
between impressions and ideas ; that there is no such con- 
nexion between causes and effects, as to support any 
argument in defence of religion or for the being of a Grod ; 
that no man can admit the truth of the Christian religion 
but by a miracle taking place in his mind at every moment; 
that the Deity, if there be any such being, is just so great 
as his actual visible works indicate, and no greater; together 
with various other precious and pious doctrines ; it had 
been a desertion of the great cause of truth and utility to 
have let these discoveries sink in silence, merely because 
the public had paid but little attention to them on their 
first or second promulgation. They might be received 
again with the same indifference ; but whether men would 
bear or whether they would forbear, the philosopher was 



ON THE HUMAN TTNDEESTANDING-. 99 

resolved the truth should he testified to them once more. 
After a few years, the substance of the "Treatise on 
Human Nature " was new-modelled and republished, with 
greater maturity of reasoning, in his " Inquiry concerning 
Human Understanding," and his "Inquiry concerning the 
Principles of Morals." These works, however, experienced 
the same neglect as the first. The grief of the disinterested 
reformer of the judgments and morals of men may well be 
imagined to have been extreme, at this repeated proof of 
their perverseness and hardness of heart ; a grief so purely 
benevolent, that it could be but imperfectly consoled by the 
reflection, that he had at least performed his own part, and 
acquitted himself of all the guilt. In regard to such a case, 
one is anxious to believe, if one could, that really virtue is 
its own reward. If it be not so, there could be few 
spectacles more pitiable than that of a philosophical philan- 
thropist, like Mr. Hume, toiling without any success as to 
the immediate object, and without any hope of a life after 
death to reward him amidst a happy rest from his labours. 
His generous distress was not, however, doomed to be 
altogether without mitigation. About the same period of 
his life at which the two " Inquiries " ineffectually tried to 
obtain attention, he published some of his " Essays," which, 
finding a more favourable reception, relieved in some 
measure the forlornness of his literary prospects, and gave a 
fresh stimulus to that indefatigable application to study; 
which even his disappointments had scarcely been sufficient 
to relax. 

There are various expressions in this and other parts of 
the volume, pretty plainly indicating Mr. Ritchie's own dis- 
positions towards religion. His condemnation of these 
proceedings against infidelity does not appear to arise in 
any degree, from a concern for the cause of religion, which 
he might think this an injudicious and injurious mode of 
defending, but from a contempt of the zeal which could 
think it worth while to take any interest about religion at 
all, or in any way to make a strenuous effort in its defence. 
Nor is it apparently his anxiety for the endangered liberty 
of the press, that prompts the indignation, but really a 
friendly sympathy with the cause of Deism, and with Hume 
considered in the character of its advocate and apostle, to 

h2 



100 DAYID HUME. 

whose writings possibly the biographer feels indebted and 
grateful for some part of his freedom from prejudice and 
superstition. 

But, while we cannot entertain the smallest respect for 
the motive of our author's censure of these proceedings, we 
disapprove, as much as he can do, the exertion of temporal 
force, whether in an ecclesiastical or purely secular form, or 
any proceedings tending to this exertion, against the pro- 
pagators of erroneous speculations. We disapprove it for 
the obvious reasons which have been repeated innumerable 
times. 

1. The exertion of force for the suppression or punish- 
ment of error, proceeds on a principle which is itself the 
most impious of all errors ; it assumes the infallibility of 
the power that makes it. 

2. Though the power, whether an individual or a cor- 
poration of persons, exercising such authority, were an 
infallible judge of truth, there can be no proof derived from 
the Christian institutes, that the Grovernor of the world has 
invested the temporal authority with any right of inter- 
ference or punishment, one step beyond the offences which 
immediately violate the good order of the body politic. 
But the most absolute proof from this source is required, 
since nothing can be more dangerous and wicked, than to 
hazard an encroachment on the peculiar and exclusive 
province of the divine jurisdiction. 

3. As this exercise of power is not authorized by Chris- 
tianity, so neither can it be justified by any practical 
experience of its being adapted to produce its intended 
effect. The experience of ages testifies its inefficacy. The 
reaction of the human mind, against what has been felt as 
persecution, has commonly produced a more obstinate ad- 
herence to the obnoxious opinions, which have thenceforth 
been propagated with more daring zeal, or with more 
sedulous cunning, so that their extermination could be 
effected only by exterminating their believers. 

4. If this power is to be exercised at all, there are no 
definable limits to its exercise, since there can be no in- 
disputable rules for deciding what error is too small, or 
what punishment is too great. It will be impossible to 
ascertain the proportions of turpitude and pernicious 



OF THE LIBEETY OP THE PEESS. 101 

tendency in the various forms and degrees of error ; and 
among the adherents to any given system of opinions, there 
will not be wanting some who can foresee the most dreadful 
consequences necessarily resulting from the rejection of 
even the minutest of its articles, and who, therefore, if in- 
rested with power, and unrestrained by policy, would enact 
fines, imprisonment, exile, or death, against the slightest 
deviation from the appointed creed. 

5. If we could even admit the possibility of such an 
exercise of human power being just in the abstract, it is 
impossible to find or imagine any man, or corporation of 
men, so sublimely virtuous as to exercise it with an ex- 
clusive disinterested regard to its object. In all cases that 
ever yet occurred, worldly advantage, or the spirit of party, 
or some other mean principle, has mingled in those pro- 
ceedings of temporal power, against heretics and un- 
believers, which have been professedly dictated by a pure 
love of truth. 

Lastly. It seems no less than a virtual rejection of 
religion, to admit that its evidence is not such as to support 
it, without the assistance of a provision to inflict temporal 
pains and penalties on its adversaries and deserters. 

In these observations we have used the word temporal 
power, notwithstanding that the proceedings meditated 
against Hume were of an ecclesiastical nature. It is scarcely 
necessary to observe, that wherever the church is formally 
supported as a corporate body by the authority, and as the 
constituent part of the state, it has the power of the state 
in all its institutions and proceedings, and can either inflict 
punishment by a process of its own, or consign the offender 
over to the civil magistrate. If the excommunication which 
would have followed the success of the proposed measure 
against Hume and Karnes, had amounted to no more than 
purely an ecclesiastical anathema, the expression merely of 
the opinion of the clerical body, they would have laughed at 
the church and all its assemblies and debates ; but as the 
case stood, they both felt no little anxiety; for, as Mr. 
Ritchie observes, " when their adversaries were armed with 
a sentence of excommunication, they had it in their power 
to institute a criminal process in the ordinary courts of 
justice. Similar measures of severity had not unfrequently 



102 DAVID HUME. 

been resorted to in England, where Woolston had not only 
been exalted to the pillory, but bore on his person manifest 
* evidence of the humane and tolerant spirit of a national 
clergy," (p. 70). All men of liberal minds rejoice that 
these methods of refuting and restraining infidelity have 
long since become obsolete. For some years past our 
government and clergy have had the wisdom to consign the 
question, in all its parts, to the pure jurisdiction of reason ; 
and the writings of our Christian advocates have shown 
how safely the sacred cause may be left without any other 
aid, except the influence of heaven. Eeviewing the actions 
of past ages, we may exult in it as a grand attainment of the 
human mind, and a noble distinction of the present times, 
that men are become persuaded religion possesses within 
itself the means of its triumph, and is of too lofty a spirit 
to accept any obligations from magistrates, pillories, and 
prisons. 

These discussions in the ecclesiastical courts somewhat 
contributed to, bring into notice the portion of -the " History 
of England" which Hume published about this time. Eor 
a number of years, however, the sale was slow, and the 
slender share of reputation most mortifying to his ruling 
passion. "With the exception of two or three tracts, he had 
not even the consolation of exciting literary hostility, which 
would have been beyond all comparison more gratifying to 
him than this silent and inglorious toleration. He pretends 
indeed, in his memoir of his own life, that some parts of the 
history did excite a violent clamour ; but this story seems to 
have been of the same accuracy as that of the redoutable 
Ealstaff, when he swore he had been set upon by some fifty 
ruffians at least ; for the biographer, " after a diligent search 
into the literary histories of that period, has been unable to 
discover any of that outcry which assailed the sensitive ears 
of Mr. Hume. In later times, indeed, his accuracy, im- 
partiality, and political tenets have been attacked, and. with 
justice, but without any clamour, and seldom with illiber- 
ality," (p. 106.) 

Many pages are occupied with a history of the successive 
literary societies in Scotland, the Rankenian Club, the Pokei 
Club, the Select Society, the Philosophical Society, and the 
[Royal Society of Edinburgh, of several of which Hume was 



HUME AND ROBERTSON COMPARED. 103 

a member, together with the most eminent of his contem- 
poraries. It is justly asserted that these associations greatly 
contributed, beside their effect on the individuals composing 
them, to promote in Scotland a literary taste, a refinement 
of composition, and a bold and comprehensive speculation. 

A kind of amicable rivalry in historical composition, 
confirmed the habits of intimate communication between 
Hume and Robertson ; the greater number of the letters of 
Hume which are published, or rather re-published in this 
volume, (for many of them have been printed before), are 
addressed to his brother-historian. Both these and his 
other letters are in general excellent specimens of an easy 
diction, unaffected good sense, politeness, and sometimes 
delicate pleasantry. 

Hume enjoyed the high advantage over his accomplished 
friend of residing at several times a number of years in 
Prance and Italy, as well as of spending considerable por- 
tions of time in the English metropolis. Prom this citizen- 
ship of the world he necessarily acquired a considerable 
degree of freedom from local prejudices, tastes, and dialect, 
an ampler collection of facts for an inductive estimate of 
human nature, and a richer store of images, supplied by so 
many views of nature and art, for giving life, colour, and 
variety, to the pictures and narrations of history. And yet 
it is almost wonderful that, in point of fact, he so little after 
all excelled in these respects his untravelled rival. If it be 
admitted that Hume has the advantage in shrewdness of 
minute discrimination, yet we believe it is felt by sensible 
readers that Eobertson is quite as much a master of general 
principles, that he gives a still greater prominence to 
important facts, and that, in the art of infusing into the 
scenes a moral interest which shall command the passions, 
he far surpasses his frigid contemporary; in short, that 
history under the management of Eobertson is less a scene 
of the dead than under that of Hume. The style also of the 
former is almost as exempt from nationality of phrase as 
that of the latter. 

In quality of secretary to the British ambassador, Hume 
visited "Vienna and Turin, and about the age of fifty was 
employed as charge, d'affaires at Paris. It was at this time 
that he became involved in the well-known affair with 



104 DAVID HUME. 

Rousseau, which has more of the character of an adventure 
than any other circumstance of his life, and of which the 
story and documents, in French and English, fill almost half 
the present volume. Our philosopher invited Rousseau to 
take refuge in England, from the danger which threatened 
him in France on account of his " Emilius," which had given 
offence to the ecclesiastical order. Rousseau availed himself 
of the invitation ; and Hume really appears to have taken 
extraordinary pains, with extraordinary patience, to place 
him in an agreeable situation, which was at last effected in 
Derbyshire. Eor a short time the expressions of gratitude 
and admiration were raised to a style of fulsome excess. 
But very soon the morbid mind of Rousseau began to con- 
ceive dark suspicions that his pretended benefactor was only 
a wicked and traitorous agent of that grand conspiracy, 
which it was now most evident that all mankind had taken 
the trouble to enter into, against his peace, his fame, and 
even his personal safety. The circumstances which excited 
the suspicion, and soon confirmed it into an invincible per- 
suasion, were more trivial than even those from which 
dramatists have represented the commencement and pro- 
gress of mistaken jealousy. A more amusing exhibition was 
perhaps never made, of the servility of a strong under- 
standing to a wretched temperament, than that afforded by 
a number of letters of Rousseau, and especially by one of 
great length, describing the whole progress of his feelings, 
and replete with virulence, eloquence, and perverse 
ingenuity. The reader at this time may be entertained by 
the quarrel without caring which of them was in the wrong, 
though his censure will inevitably fall on the citizen of 
Geneva. The dispute was well worth perusing for the sake 
of the contrast between the men; for the world will 
probably never see again such an instance of the two 
extremes of the philosophic character brought in contact. 
We could amuse ourselves by compounding in imagination 
these two elements in equal proportions, or with various 
degrees of the predominance of either. It may be worth 
while for any one who proposes to set up for a philosopher 
to do this, in order to find the standard to which it may be 
prudent to conform himself. About an equal mixture of 
them would make a man whom all would be constrained to 



HTJME'S LAST DATS. 105 

admire ; but no mixture would constitute one whom a good 
man could approve or revere. Even if the history of the 
world did not supply a far nobler class of human beings, to 
be placed in contrast with such as the persons in question, 
or as any imaginable combination of the two characters, it 
would still be evident that men most religiously devoted to 
the pursuit of fame, that is, idolatry of self, devoid of any 
pure, unmingled wish to do good, and neglectful or con- 
temptuous of the authority of the Supreme Spirit, are 
creatures of a very degraded order, mere terrce Jilii, not- 
withstanding the sagacity which can illustrate the records of 
time or unfold the nature of man, notwithstanding the 
originality which can invent new systems, or the eloquence 
which can adorn them. 

The account of the closing part of Hume's life has long 
been very well known to the public ; but we are inclined to 
print it once more, as exhibiting what would probably be 
admitted, and even cited by infidels, as an example of the 
noblest and most magnanimous deportment in the prospect 
of death, that it is possible for any of their class to main- 
tain ; an example indeed which very few of them ever in 
their serious moments dare promise themselves to equal, 
though they may, like Mr. Ritchie, deem it in the highest 
degree enviable. It may be taken as quite their apostolic 
specimen, standing parallel in their history to the instance 
of St. Paul in the records of the Christians, " I have fought 
a good fight," &c. Mr. Hume had visited Bath, but was 
returning to Scotland under an increase of his fatal malady. 
At this period, however, 

" His cheerfulness never forsook him. He wrote letters to- his 
literary friends, informing them of his intention to be at Edin- 
burgh on a certain day, and inviting them to dine with him on 
the day following. It was a kind of farewell dinner ; and among 
those who came to partake of the hospitality of the dying his- 
torian were Lord Elibank, Dr. Smith, Dr. Blair, Dr. Black, 
Professor Fergusson, and John Home. 

" At his return to Edinburgh, Mr. Hume, though extremely 
debilitated by disease, went abroad at times in a sedan chair, 
and called on his friends ; but his ghastly looks intimated the 
rapid approach of death. He diverted himself with correcting 
his works for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, 
with the conversation of his friends and sometimes in the even- 



106 DA.VID HUME. 

ing with a party at his favourite game of whist. His faeetious- 
ness led him to indulge occasionally in the bagatelle. Among 
other verbal legacies, in making which he amused himself, the fol- 
lowing whimsical one has been related. The author of 'Douglas, 
is said to have had a mortal aversion to port wine, and to 
have had frequent disputes with the historian about the manner 
of spelling his name. Both these circumstances were often the 
subject of Mr. Hume's raillery ; and he verbally bequeathed to 
the poet a quantity of port wine, on condition that he should 
always drink a bottle at a sitting, and give a receipt for it under 
the signature of John H^me. 

" Dr. Smith has recorded an instance of Mr. Hume's sportive 
disposition ; and it also shows the placidity of his mind, not- 
withstanding the prospect of speedy dissolution. Colonel 
Edmonstone came to take leave of him ; and on his way home 
he could not forbear writing Hume a letter, bidding him once 
more an eternal adieu, and applying to him the French verses 
in which the Abbe Chaulieu, in expectation of his own death, 
laments his approaching separation from his friend the Marquis 
de la Fare. Dr. Smith happened to enter the room while Mr. 
Hume was reading the letter ; and in the course of the conver- 
sation it gave rise to, Mr. Hume expressed the satisfaction he 
had in leaving his friends, and his brother's family in particular, 
in prosperous circumstances. This, he said, he felt so sensibly, 
that when he was reading a few days before Lucian's ' Dialogues 
of the Dead,' he could not, among all the excuses which are 
alleged to Charon for not entering readily into his boat, find one 
that fitted him. He had no house to finish ; he had no daughter 
to provide for ; he had no enemies upon whom he wished to 
revenge himself. 'I could not well imagine,' said he, 'what 
excuse I could make to Charon in order to obtain a little delay. 
I have done everything of consequence which I ever meant to 
do. I could at no time expect to leave my relations and friends 
in a better situation than that in which I am now likely to leave 
them : I therefore have all reason to die contented.' 

" ' He then diverted himself,' continues Dr. Smith, ' with 
inventing several jocular excuses which he supposed he might 
make to Charon, and in imagining the very surly answers which 
it might suit the character of Charon to return to them.' ' Upon 
further consideration,' said he, 'I thought I might say to him, 
Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition. 
Allow me a little time that I may see how the public receive 
the alterations. But Charon would answer, When you see the 
effect of these, you will be for making other alterations. There 
will be no end of such excuses ; so, honest friend, please step 
into the boat. But I might still urge, Have a little patience, 



hume's last days. 107 

good Charon : I have been endeavouring to open the eyes of the 
public. If I live a few years longer, I may have the satisfaction 
of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of 
superstition. But Charon would then lose all temper and 
decency : You loitering rogue, that will not happen these many 
hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so 
long a term 1 Get into the boat this instant, you lazy, loitering 
rogue.' 

"The hour of his departure had now arrived. His decline 
being gradual, he was in his last moments perfectly sensible, and 
free from pain. He showed not the slightest indication of 
impatience or fretfulness, but conversed with the people around 
him in a tone of mildness and affection ; and his whole conduct 
evinced a happy composure of mind. On Sunday, the 25th of 
August, 1776, about four o'clock in the afternoon, this great and 
amiable man expired." — Pp. 298 — 301. 

On this most remarkable exhibition we think there was 
room, for the biographer to have made several observations ; 
as, 

First, supposing a certainty of the final cessation of con- 
scions existence at death, this indifference to life, if it was 
not affected (which indeed we suspect it to have been in 
part) was an absurd undervaluation of a possession which 
almost all rational creatures, that have not been extremely 
miserable, have held most dear, and which is in its own 
nature most precious. To be a conscious agent, exerting a 
rich combination of wonderful faculties, to feel an infinite 
variety of pleasurable sensations and emotions, to contem- 
plate all nature, to extend an intellectual presence to indefi- 
nite ages of the past and future, to possess a perennial 
spring of ideas, to run infinite lengths of inquiry, with the 
delight of exercise and fieetness, even when not with the 
satisfaction of full attainment, and to be a lord over inani- 
mate matter, compelling it to an action and a use alto- 
gether foreign to its nature, — to be all this, is a state so 
stupendously different from that of being simply a piece of 
clay, that to be quite easy and complacent in the immediate 
prospect of passing from the one to the other, is a total 
inversion of all reasonable estimates of things ; it is a 
renunciation, we do not say of sound philosophy, but of 
common sense. The certainty that the loss will not be felt 
after it has taken place, will but little soothe a man of 



108 DAYID HUME. 

unperverted mind in considering what it is that he is going 
to lose. 

Second, the jocularity of the philosopher was contrary to 
good taste. Supposing that the expected loss were not, 
according to a grand law of nature, a cause for melancholy 
and desperation, but that the contentment were rational ; 
yet the approaching transformation was at all events to be 
regarded as a very grave and very strange event, and there- 
fore jocularity was totally incongruous with the anticipation 
of such an event : a grave and solemn feeling was the only 
one that could be in unison with the contemplation of such 
a change. There was, in this instance, the same incon- 
gruity which we should impute to a writer who should 
mingle buffoonery in a solemn crisis of the drama, or with 
the most momentous event of a history. To be in harmony 
with his situation, in his own view of that situation, the 
expressions of the dying philosopher were required to be 
dignified ; and if they were in any degree vivacious, the 
vivacity ought to have been rendered graceful by being 
accompanied with the noblest effort of the intellect of 
which the efforts were going to cease for ever. The low 
vivacity of which we have been reading, seems but like the 
quickening corruption of a mind whose faculty of percep- 
tion is putrifying and dissolving even before the body. It 
is true that good men, of a high order, have been known to 
utter pleasantries in their last hours. But these have been 
pleasantries of a fine ethereal quality, the scintillations of 
animated hope, the high pulsations of mental health, the 
involuntary movements of a spirit feeling itself free even in 
the grasp of death, the natural springs and boundings of 
faculties on the point of obtaining a still much greater and 
a boundless liberty. These had no resemblance to the low 
and laboured jokes of our philosopher ; jokes so laboured as 
to give strong cause for suspicion, after al], that they were 
of the same nature, and for the same purpose, as the expe- 
dient of a boy on passing through some gloomy place in the 
night, who whistles to lessen his fear, or to persuade his 
companion that he does not feel it. 

Third, such a manner of meeting death was inconsistent 
with the scepticism to which Hume was always found to 
avow hia adherence. For that scepticism necessarily ac- 



hume's last days. 109 

knowledged a possibility and a chance that the religion 
which he had scorned, might, notwithstanding, be found 
true, and might, in the moment after his death, glare upon 
him with all its terrors. But how dreadful to a reflecting 
mind would have been the smallest chance of meeting such 
a vision ! Yet the philosopher could be cracking his heavy 
jokes, and Dr. Smith could be much diverted at the sport. 

Fourth, to a man who solemnly believes the truth of 
revelation, and therefore the threatenings of divine ven- 
geance against the despisers of it, this scene will present as 
mournful a spectacle as perhaps the sun ever shone upon. 
"We have beheld a man of great talents and invincible per- 
severance, entering on his career with the profession of an 
impartial inquiry after truth, met at every stage and step 
by the evidences and expostulations of religion and the 
claims of his Creator, but devoting his labours to the pur- 
suit of fame and the promotion of impiety, at length acquir- 
ing and accomplishing, as he declared himself, all he had 
intended and desired, and descending toward the close of 
life amidst tranquillity, widely-extending reputation, and the 
homage of the great and the learned. We behold him 
appointed soon to appear before that Judge to whom he 
had never alluded but with malice or contempt ; yet pre- 
serving to appearance an entire self-complacency, idly jest- 
ing about his approaching dissolution, and mingling with 
the insane sport his references to the fall of " superstition," 
a term of which the meaning is hardly ever dubious when 
expressed by such men. "We behold him at last carried off, 
and we seem to hear, the following moment, from the dark- 
ness in which he vanishes, the shriek of surprise and terror, 
and the overpowering accents of the messenger of ven- 
geance. On the whole globe there probably was not acting, 
at the time, so mournful a tragedy as that of which the 
friends of Hume were the spectators, without being aware 
that it was any tragedy at all. 

If that barbarous old Charon would have permitted a cen- 
tury or two more of life, it is probable that Hume would 
have been severely mortified in viewing the effect of his 
writings against " superstition," an effect so much less 
than his vanity no doubt secretly anticipated. Indeed, his 
strictly philosophical works seem likely to fall into utter 



110 HINDOO IDOLATKY AND CHKISTIANITY. 

neglect. The biographer justly observes, that, though very 
acute, they are not very lucid or systematic in point of 
reasoning ; and they have none of that eloquence, which 
sometimes continues to interest the general reader in works 
that are becoming superannuated in the schools of philoso- 
phy. Many of his shorter essays will always be read with 
much advantage ; but his History, we need not say, is the 
basis of his permanent reputation ; and it will perpetuate 
the moral, as well as the intellectual cast of his mind ; it 
will show a man indifferent to the welfare of mankind, con- 
temptuous of the sublime feelings of moral and religious 
heroism, incapable himself of all grand and affecting senti- 
ments, and constantly cherishing a consummate arrogance, 
though often under the semblance and language of philo- 
sophic moderation. 



HINDOO IDOLATET AND CHRISTIANITY. 

A Vindication of the Hindoos from the Aspersions of the Rev. 
Claudius Buchanan, M. A.j with a Refutation of the Arguments 
exhibited in his Memoir, on the Expediency of an Ecclesiastical 
Establishment for British India, and the ultimate Civilization 
of the Natives, by their Conversion to Christianity. Also, Remarks 
on an Address from the Missionaries in Bengal, to the Natives of 
India, condemning their Errors, and inviting them to become 
Christians. The whole tending to evince the Excellence of the 
Moral System of the Hindoos, and the Danger of interfering 
with their Customs or Religion. By a Bengal Officer. 8vo. 
1808. 

Notwithstanding the laudable pains taken, by some of the 
pious people of these times, to engage our respect at least, 
if not to effect our conversion, to the "religion" of the 
Brahmins, we cannot profess to have entirely overcome all 
the difficulties of admitting the doctrine of transmigration. 
Till very lately, we had no doubts whatever on the subject ; 
we could most conscientiously have declared a total disbelief 



HINDOO IDOLATBY AND CHRISTIANITY. Ill 

of that doctrine ; but it is the privilege or misfortune of 
candid minds, to be in every stage of their intellectual course 
susceptible of the impression of every new argument, so that 
you shall find them, in February , veering toward the belief 
of what they had deemed utterly absurd in the December 
preceding. In time, however, they learn to be a little 
cautious of instantly avowing each new direction of their 
opinions : we, therefore, do not wish to be just now called 
upon to express ourselves decidedly, as to our views of this 
grand tenet of Indian faith : we shall only say that the sole 
argument which has gone far to change our former views of 
the subject, arises from the appearance of such an author as 
the one now before us. For it would seem rather difficult 
to believe, that such a piece of entity should have originated 
in this country of England, to which, notwithstanding, we 
are to refer, as far as appears, the commencement of his 
present stage of mundane existence : he does not perhaps 
distinctly say this, but it is impossible for us to assign such 
a nativity to the sister island, because we are all apprized of 
the valuable privilege conferred on that soil by St. Patrick, 
of never having cause to regret the want of ichneumons. 
And our partiality for England, though the country pro- 
duces, we know, many things for which it is never the better, 
would really make it desirable to hope, that the moral agent 
before us received its being and acquired its properties in 
some distant country and age, though it does not say whether 
it has any dim traces of recollection of having, early in the 
Kdlijoog, infested the precincts of some idol's temple in the 
East, and tasted under the infernal altar the blood of a 
human sacrifice. The surmise of an origin not very recent, 
is suggested by the appearance of something more virulent 
and inveterate in the quality of the being, than could have 
grown from inhabiting any small number of malignant 
substances and forms. Whether this may not have been an 
instance of a sacrilegious sinner doomed to " pass," accord- 
ing to the Institutes of Menu, (p. 352), " a thousand times 
into the bodies of spiders, of snakes, or mischievous toad- 
sucking demons," it is not for us to pretend to determine. 
It is also difficult to guess how the last transit was suffered 
to go into the veritable or apparent shape of a man, if that 
improvement of condition was in any possible connexion 



112 HINDOO IDOLATEY AND CHRISTIANITY. 

with amendment of quality. But yet, on consideration, this 
may perhaps be partly explained; for as there is in the 
creature one good quality, this may become in the place of 
a bad one: this good property is honesty, as opposed to 
hypocrisy. 

The several preceding remonstrants against the measures 
for imparting Christian instruction to the Hindoos, while in 
effect presenting themselves as the abettors of paganism, 
with all its abominations, were disposed notwithstanding to 
keep up a certain language of pretended respect for Chris- 
tianity. Their hypocrisy was indeed clumsily managed, just 
in proportion to their ignorance of the nature of the sacred 
cause which was to be mocked by it ; but believing no doubt 
that all the friends of that cause were little better than fools, 
they thought it might be easy to gull them without much 
dexterity of phrase, and they imagined, we suppose, some 
possible advantage to themselves in so doing. While ear- 
nestly plotting, therefore, a mortal sacrifice of Christianity, 
so far as it is any thing more than a local superstition, to be 
allowed where it always prevails, they adopted a proceeding 
which was but a very awkward imitation of the smooth 
treachery of that most miserable man who is " gone to his 
own place," a place however not likely to be so lonely as 
some divines have imagined. But this Bengal Officer justly 
despises all such shallow and useless policy ; and comes 
forward in the honest avowed character of a soldier of Herod 
or Pilate, whose rude heathenism laughs at the uncouth 
grimaces of pretended holiness with which the less coura- 
geous conspirators are proceeding to their purpose. He does 
not cant, in feeble and stupid hyperbole of falsehood, to Mr. 
Twining' s tune of " surrendering life rather than the Chris- 
tian religion." JBLe makes none of Major Scott Waring's 
clumsy pretences of respect for the Holy Scriptures, and 
"our good old church," or of believing the "truths of our 
religion," and hoping no one will attribute his reviling of 
missionaries, and his anger at the " new mania of conversion," 
"to indifference to the eternal welfare of the natives of 
India." He is content, and perhaps even proud, to provoke 
the abhorrence of the public by his impious audacity, and, in 
much consistency with the bravery of his character, leaves 
undivided to his coadjutors the satisfaction of being rewarded 



HINDOO IDOLATBY AND CHEISTIANITY, 113 

"with its contempt for their hypocrisy. We can easily 
suppose he would address them in some such terms as these : 
" Where is the use of your pretending what you know, or 
might know, that not a mortal will believe ? Even if any 
body would believe your sham palaver of liking the church, 
the bible, and all that, what good would it be ? Is one 
always to be putting on a set of pretended notions, and 
adjusting them like a parson his pulpit clothes at a vestry 
looking-glass, before one is to venture out into the world ? 
If one cannot do what one pleases and say what one thinks, 
but must be canting a parcel of stuff, just because bishops 
and priests are paid to cant it, it were better to shoot oneself 
without more ado. I am for a man of spirit showing that 
he does not care for all the priests and methodists on earth. 
What the plague should keep us from telling them that we 
are none of their dupes ? You are not afraid, I suppose, of 
these Christians, and the person they call Christ ? If you 
are, you have made a fine blunder in saying so much as you 
have already ; I wish it may not be too late for you to get 
reconciled to mother-church; try the first opportunity by 
all means, I beg of you, and be prodigious penitent, and 
subscribe to the Bible Society. At any rate, do not go 'on 
making pretences of some kind of respect for Christianity, 
while every body may see that you are insulting and practi- 
cally disclaiming it, and that you would caper with joy to 
see all the Bibles in the world piled up for a bonfire. Por 
myself, they may call me infidel, or heathen, or atheist, if 
they please, but they shall never call me hypocrite or 
coward ; and as to you, I should really think that while you 
are throwing away all other reputation, you might as well 
keep that of courage ?" 

We can easily conceive, that the accession of this hero 
will not give an unmingled satisfaction to the band. Though 
his views, his spirit, and his object, are but the same as theirs, 
his ingenuous boldness makes a more perfect disclosure, than 
they would probably have wished till some more favourable 
season. It is not indeed any very refined artifice of manage- 
ment that they could have comprehended, or therefore 
applauded ; Mr. Twining' s understanding, especially, might 
not have been able to distinguish the new ally from a 
Christian, had he written with any thing like the delicate 

I 



114 HINDOO IDOLATRY AND CHRISTIANITY. 

subtilty and finesse of such an author as Hume. A tolerably 
broad style of expression was quite necessary to meet the 
perceptions of the junto ; but still they could have recognized 
the marks of fraternity in our author, without his absolutely 
going the length of chanting psalms to the loathsome Doorga, 
and celebrating the sublime theology of that passage in the 
Institutes of Menu, which contains a clause relating to the 
excretions of the divinity ! Not that they might have had 
any objection to all this in itself, and in its proper place, that 
is in Bengal ; but in England there is a certain remainder 
of the fashion of decency, which imposes the necessity of a 
small measure of policy ; and therefore they would have 
been much more glad of his assistance, if he had not rushed 
so furiously forward in the costume of the gymnosophists, to 
beat the gong of the idol's temple, and summon the people 
to the mass of Seeva. Such as he is, however, the party 
must have him for an associate ; in compassion they must 
have him, for he is fit for no other company ; he has lost 
caste in the civilized society of Christendom ; this irretrie- 
vable sacrifice made for the cause, is evidence of his merit, 
and will secure his fidelity. And though it would have been, 
in the party, an extremely moderate and humble petition, to 
have asked of the Indian gods to send them a co-operator 
much better versed in rules of art and discretion, and very 
much better capable of constructing sentences, than this 
unfortunate imp, yet we think they may make good service 
of him in a cause, in which they will not be able every day 
to find creatures of sufficient vice and stupidity to be 
employed. He is quite the Caliban for their drudgery, their 
curses, and their incantations ; admirably fitted to fetch wood 
for baking their idols and burning their women; the genuine 
" hagseed," whose very dialect betrays the descent from 
Doorga or Sycorax. He is exactly for their purpose, if they 
want an organ through which they may eructate and disgorge 
the vilest slanders against blameless missionaries, profane 
every thing that is sacred, assert every thing that is false,, 
and deify every thing that is abominable. 

The chief part and object of the production before us, is 
the direct assertion, extended and illustrated to great length, 
of the excellence of the Hindoo " religion," which is repre- 
sented as so firmly fixed in the minds of the people, that it 



HINDOO IDOLATRY AND CHRISTIANITY. 115 

is madness to presume the possibility of displacing it by 
Christianity; and so adequate to all their spiritual and 
moral interests, that if Christianity could be substituted, 
it would be no advantago to them. Collateral topics are 
treated in a rambling way, several of them in a sort of 
attack on Dr. Buchanan. The subject of the missions is 
the essenee of the business. Most of what he has to say 
directly on this subject, seems to have been set down pre- 
viously to the appearance of Major Scott "Waring's pam- 
phlet, but is so perfectly in the same strain, that each might 
be taken as an echo of the other. 

His flimsy observations relating to the missions, having 
been answered and exploded by anticipation, in the various 
publications that have been called forth by the two former 
writers, a very slight additional notice will suffice. It is 
needless to cite notorious facts, in contradiction of his 
assertion of the impracticability of converting the Hin- 
doos. But it may be remarked here, and might have been 
remarked before, that these men let themselves talk, as if 
nothing were effected where prodigies are not effected, and 
as if a thing could never be done which cannot be done 
in an instant. "What do they suppose the missionaries 
expected to effect, and in what time ? Do they imagine 
that Mr. Carey, for instance, landed in India with the 
notion that all who came to worship the Ganges, or to burn 
their mothers, or expose their children on its banks, one 
season, were to come there the next to be baptized ? Or 
that the want of moonlight the half of each month would be 
supplied by the light of Hindoo temples, set on fire over 
the heads of their gods by their recent worshippers all 
through Hindostan ? The missionaries were painfully in- 
structed, before they went, in the obduracy of human 
nature ; in the fatal resistance which truth has everywhere 
to expect from ignorance and prejudice, and a pure religion 
from desperate moral depravity. They had found too much 
of this, even in a country like England, to indulge for one 
moment the dream that they were to transform and illumi- 
nate crowds of miserable pagan barbarians, by just touching 
them with a testament or a tract. As they could not 
presume to promise themselves, for the present, that extra- 
ordinary exertion of divine power which their confidence in 

i 2 



116 HINDOO IDOLATET AND CHRISTIANITY. 

prophetic declarations foresaw as the felicity of some future 
age, they formed their calculation nearly on the recorded 
and usual effect of human labours for the promotion of 
religion. They could not need to be told, in order to keep 
their imagination sober, that a handful of men commencing 
hostility, on such a calculation, against a most comprehen- 
sive and inveterate superstition, must expect so slow a 
success, that only their setting as high a value as ever 
benevolent apostle, or if possible as ever the still more 
benevolent angels of heaven did, on one pagan delivered 
from the abhorred den of idolatrous superstition, would 
console them on a numerical view of their acquisitions. 
Almost such a value they do set, in the slow progress of 
their success, on each individual ; and therefore their ani- 
mation is sustained, notwithstanding their cause does not 
obtain multitudes and princes, the only standard by which 
these officers and merchants are capable of estimating 
success. 

If the missionaries really did go to India with hopes 
somewhat too elated, it was in a great measure from the 
fallacious accounts which a former set of infidel reporters 
had concurred in giving to Europe of the innocence, mild- 
ness, and civilization of the Hindoos ; a fallacy which this 
Vindicator is silly enough to attempt imposing on the now 
better-informed public once more, and without the smallest 
aid of elegance, ingenuity, or learning. The missionaries 
knew they should find idols almost as plentiful as stumps of 
trees, and millions of unhappy mortals prostrate before 
them; they were prepared for this, but they had perhaps 
trusted these deceivers rather too far, to make, in its full 
extent, the infallible inference as to the moral depravity of 
the people ; the consequence was, a feeling of no little sur- 
prise to fiud them almost all cheats, liars, and adulterers. 
However, they have had the courage to labour against both 
the idolatry and the moral depravity; they confide in the 
ultimate benignity of Heaven to the unhappy nations of the 
East ; and this Bengal Officer may be assured, that they 
look on the yet little company of first converts with as 
much delight, — whether considering the intrinsic value of 
so many Christianized minds, or regarding them as the pre- 
cursors of an infinite multitude to become the disciples and 



j 



HINDOO IDOLATRY AND CHRISTIANITY. 117 

agents of the Christian cause long perhaps after they shall 
have retired from their mission to their reward, — as he ever 
did, in the day of victory, on ten times as many of the same 
race of people lying dead on the field. 

To attempt explaining to him the elevated religious 
nature of the motives by which they are actuated, would 
undoubtedly be much the same thing as to accost the facul- 
ties of the post aforesaid, or even those of Mr. Twining ; 
but we may hope to make it intelligible to him by what 
motives they are not actuated, when we state, that these 
missionaries in a great measure, if not entirely, support 
themselves by their secular employments, which they under- 
took, in order that the contributions from England might 
be applied to the purposes of the mission in a stricter sense 
than that of supporting themselves and their families, and 
with a generous unanimous determination to devote to the 
same exclusive purpose whatever surplus might arise to any 
or all of them from such employments. This is the first 
calumniator that has made it necessary to say one word 
respecting the motives of the missionaries in India. 

If it will please him better, we will impute it to malignity 
rather than to a hopeless eclipse of understanding, that in 
talking about interference and toleration, he, like the rest 
of the party, deprecates the use of the methods of mere 
persuasion, and represents their consequences in terms 
which identify them with methods of force. 

Now, what is it exactly that these terms, justice, forbear- 
ance, indulgence, liberality, and toleration, are opposed to, 
in relation to our conduct toward the Hindoos ? The 
new doctors of philanthropy take great pains to shift and 
complicate the answer to this question. They feel how 
strikingly rational it would look to answer directly and 
precisely, that the injustice, the injury, the restraint, the 
illiberality, the interference, and the intolerance, against 
which they so zealously remonstrate in behalf of the Hin- 
doos, is actually neither more nor less than a permission, 
on the part of our government, to a number of Christian 
teachers, of exemplary virtue and literary acquirements, to 
visit the towns and villages, trusting their personal safety 
entirely to the inhabitants, while they inform them what 
their own Sastras say of their gods, to infer from these 



118 HINDOO IDOLATBY AND CHEISTIANITX. 

testimonies that they cannot be right objects of worship, 
and to tell them of another Being, to them yet unknown, 
that exclusively claims their devotion. Eut what then are 
the interference and intolerance, which all this rhetoric of 
liberality is exerted to avert from those people ? Has the 
government ever meditated any general sweeping measure 
against the privileges of their priesthood, against the rites 
of their temples, against the fantastic observances inter- 
woven with their whole economy of life, or against the laws 
of their castes ? The government never thought of any 
such thing. It has not even interfered with the female 
sacrifice, with their exhibitions of self-torture, nor with 
their regaling the sharks and crocodiles with the warm 
living bodies of their children, till the prohibitory regula- 
tion of Marquis "Wellesley was called forth by accounts of 
the excess to which this festival of Hindoo charity was 
carried at Gronga Saugor. Is it this act of " interference" 
which has caused the alarm with which our priests of the 
crocodile have begun to preach, in such pious fervour, 
against injustice, lUiberality, and intolerance? But if so, 
why do they not try to preserve some appearance of dis- 
crimination in fixing the criminal charge ? "Why are the 
missionaries brought into the question? It was not their 
fault that the Marquis had the presumption to perpetrate 
this crime against the adored demons of India. Let the 
Marquis bear his own guilt ; let him even be impeached in 
the British Parliament for this act of rebellion against the 
Pandemonium, the ancient paramount government of Hin- 
dostan, under which he ought to have known his place and 
duty better, than to interfere with any of its sacred appoint- 
ments ; but let not the missionaries be brought in for any 
share of his guilt or punishment. 

Or do these writers, in their deprecations of intolerance 
and interference, mean to refer to such proceedings as those 
forced changes in the military exterior which provoked the 
mutiny of Vellore ? Why then do they not speak to the 
point ; and, in protesting against the continuance or repeti- 
tion of such measures, arraign the Madras government, or 
the commander of the army, or whatever higher power 
authorized the one or the other in the unfortunate experi- 
ment, for a most wanton and dangerous insult on their 



HINDOO IDOLATRY AND CHRISTIANITY. 119 

soldiers. If they are too sneaking to do this, for fear 
perhaps of having on their hands a number of what are 
called affairs of honour, let them not spend their wrath on 
the harmless messengers of religion, who had no more to 
do in any way with that sanguinary business than we have 
while writing these remarks on their noble-spirited accusers. 
Assuredly, to fall foul of the caps, and whiskers, and red- 
streaked foreheads of sepoys, was the very last thing that 
would ever have come into the heads of the missionaries, 
even though they had been in the Christianizing company 
of the officers at Vellore ; they would have been about very 
different work, and might have prosecuted it till the arrival 
of the tenth Avatar, before mutiny or massacre would have 
been the consequence. There would have been some 
reasonable quantity of difference, very perceptible to these 
barbarian soldiers, though it does not seem to be so to the 
English advocates of their superstition, between the orders 
and operators of personal violence, and two, or three, or ten 
missionaries, explaining the contents of the four gospels. 
And even supposing the extreme case, that the spirit of 
Moloch had entered into them, their victims would have 
been obvious, few, and unconnected with any others ; those 
victims would have been ready, and there the sacrifice to 
the dii inferi would have ended. From how many deadly 
griefs, such a sacrifice, especially had it involved all the 
missionaries, might have saved our philanthropists ! 

If this author should say that his homilies against 
intolerance are chiefly intended against Dr. Buchanan's 
proposal for the government to abolish the Hindoo holidays, 
the excessive polygamy of the Koolin Brahmins, and the 
privileges of the monstrous swarm of mendicants, to restrain 
in a measure the female sacrifices, together with other 
abominations, and to curb the excesses of the 700,000 
pilgrims to Jaggernaut ; we would ask, once more, what 
all this has to do with the missionaries ? These are 
suggestions for the solemn consideration of the government, 
which we are to presume does not like all these outrages of 
superstition on the good order of society ; as but few of 
them are authorized by the sacred books of the Hindoos 
themselves, and the government has probably sufficient 
power to put them down in part without any hazard, we 



120 HINDOO IDOLATRY AND CHRISTIANITY. 

think, notwithstanding this author, that Dr. Buchanan is 
right in recommending it to be done. But meanwhile, 
whether it is done or not, or whether it ought to be done or 
not, the missions will no more interfere with this whole 
concern, or with any part of it, than they will with the 
sowing of the rice-grounds. If they should happen to 
detain two or three dozen persons from the orgies of 
Jaggernaut, we suppose the 700,000 may possibly not be 
aware of this deficiency in their numbers, or will hardly 
think of taking their revenge by driving all the Europeans 
into the sea. It is not so much, forsooth, that their 
"religion" teaches them to care about one another; nor 
will the magazines of grain in the neighbourhood of the god 
be m the least want of additional consumers. 

But, in truth, all these remarks levelled to the purpose of 
getting a precise answer to the inquiry, what it is exactly 
that the charge of interference and intolerance is to be fixed 
upon, — are very needless. The obnoxious suggestions held 
out by Dr. Buchanan, with their imaginary or exaggerated 
ill consequences, the Vellore mutiny, excursive episodes to 
the distance of Eosetta, Buenos Ayres, and even Mexico, in 
Messrs. Twining and Scott Waring, and in the article now 
before us retrospects so far back as the Crusades, St. 
Bartholomew, and the crimes of superstition recorded in 
our own " blood-stained annals," as they are justly called, 
whimsically jumbled with some ponderous buffoonery in 
misrepresentation of the proceedings and hazards of the « 
Methodists itinerating among the Irish Catholics, — are all 
of most excellent use in varying and distending the reader's 
view to a vast compass of alarming vision, while there is still 
one precise point to which the effect of all this is meant to 
converge. To that one point the author frequently reverts, 
in order to preserve in the reader's mind the due bearing of 
all his exhibitions : but does not stop long there, lest he 
should lose the effect of his scattered topics of intimidation, 
and be reduced in the reader's view to the bare exclusive 
resources of impiety. The object is, by assembling a 
number of frightful histories, and enlarging on the possible 
mischief of this or that measure, which in fact has not the 
smallest connexion with the missionary system, and by 
taking care continually to associate these various repre- 



Hnn300 IDOLATEX AND CHBISTTAINITY. 121 

sentations with references to the missions, — to make the 
missions take all the portentous colours of these associated 
shapes of evil, and stand forward to view as the embodied 
concentration of all real and imaginable perils. It is not 
military innovation, or the prevention of sacrificing children 
at Saugor, or the castigation of the gymnosophist Saniassis 
into a little decency and clothing, or the suppression or 
allowance of Hindoo holidays or polygamy, that these men 
really care about ; it is precisely the attempt to introduce 
pure Christianity as contained in the New Testament, into 
India, that excites their anger ; and it is this very attempt, 
made in a manner as peaceful and disconnected from all 
shadow or even possibility of force or constraint, as that in 
which any good thing ever attempted to enter any country, 
— that these men wish to brand with the names of illiber- 
ality, interference, and intolerance. The missionaries ask 
of the government just the permission, the mere permission 
and no more, to pursue their own undertaking, of course by 
the sole means of persuasion and Christian books ; and thi3 
permission, if granted, is the intolerance to the Hindoos. 
It is intolerance to fifty millions of idolaters, that a few 
Christian instructors should be allowed to tell them that 
they are guilty and deluded beings, that there is a 
Redeemer of sinful mortals, that the true God has revealed 
himself, that idolatry is absurd and wicked, and that women 
should not be burnt, nor children exposed. It is intolerance 
to the pagans to suffer a single word to be said to them in 
condemnation of any thing which on the ground of their 
superstition they do wrong, or in contradiction of any thing 
they believe erroneously. It is intolerance to them and to 
their idols to suffer a few verses of the Bible to be read in 
the neighbourhood of one of their houses, even with their 
own consent, or a prayer to be made to the Almighty for 
their salvation, if it is where they can hear that prayer ; so 
that, according to this latest improvement in the theory of 
civilization, to tolerate any mode of faith and worship is to 
establish it, and that too with all the rigour of popery in the 
dark ages, insomuch that it shall be a crime for any one of a 
different persuasion to attempt to make a proselyte from it, 
or even offer a written statement of his opinions, and the 
reasons and authority of them. A Hindoo, it seems, lives 



122 HINDOO IDOLATEY AND CHRISTIANITY. 

under an intolerant government, unless that government 
shall give him a solemn pledge that no Christian shall ever 
insult him with the remark, that the ugly piece of wood he 
is worshipping cannot give him rain, or harvest, or health, 
or pardon of his guilt. This is verily a new notion of tole- 
ration and its opposite, and would help to place many 
celebrated characters in a new light. Nero and Diocletian 
had an enlarged liberality, to which no historian has had the 
sense to do justice. They went, to be sure, a little too far 
in favour of their heathen subjects, as they sometimes did 
even more than enjoin the total silence of the Christians ; 
but they are amply excused for that slight excess by the 
consideration that they were themselves really of the pagan 
faith. Henry the Fourth committed an inexpiable outrage 
of intolerance against his popish subjects by the Edict of 
Nantes ; and therefore Louis the Fourteenth showed himself 
the paragon of tolerant princes by revoking it. But even 
Tiis merit might be eclipsed if there were a protestant king 
of a country chiefly inhabited by papists, and if he were to 
compliment their faith by a law of banishment against any 
one of his protestant subjects that should presume to 
attempt making a proselyte, or but offer a copy of a 
reformed catechism. If his present Majesty, as sovereign 
of the Indian provinces, should be induced to extend this 
latest improvement of toleration to his heathen subjects in 
that quarter, there will be other reforms to be adopted 
nearer home. It must be enacted in the way of toleration 
to the Irish catholics, that no protestant shall presume to 
pray or preach in their hearing, or offer them a tract against 
image-worship or transubstantiation. Now, in sober sad- 
ness, would not any thing like this be the last excess of 
impious absurdity ? But what then would it be to make an 
enactment — not against the attempt to gain converts from a 
corrupted to the true mode of Christian faith, but against 
converting to that faith any of the miserable slaves of the 
vilest paganism ! Let it be added that this toleration would 
be the very rivet of their slavery, though the word sounds, 
and is employed as meaning, something like liberty. In 
this manner, to tolerate these heathens is to deprive them 
by force of any means or chance of the benefit of ever 
becoming Christians ; for the force which restrains the agent 






HINDOO IDOLATRY AND CHRISTIANITY. 123 

of any good, is equally a force employed against the subject 
that might have received it. 

As to the alarm, pretended by this writer, as well as the 
others, to have been excited in India by the missionaries, 
creating a necessity, on the ground of safety and true 
policy, of suppressing them, it is totally and incontestably 
false. They know perfectly well that if nothing is done to 
excite the fears or anger of the natives, but what is done by 
the missionaries, the English gentlemen may continue to 
sleep in their open bungalows, just as safely as they have 
done before ; they may all, for any thing the Hindoos will 
do to prevent, live to make their fortunes, and come home 
to proclaim their irreligion. 

Though we do not, however, believe a word of what is 
reiterated to hoarseness by these men, about the alarming 
effect of attempting to teach Christianity in Hindostan, we 
may be allowed to admire the felicity with which the 
point is argued in such a passage as the following : — 

" It is likewise known, that the disaffection at Palamcottah, 
somewhat excited by recent alterations in dress, and other 
(apprehended) changes of Asiatic costume, was highly aggra- 
vated by an unhappy report in circulation, — that five hundred 
Europeans were on their way from Madras, for the purpose of 
enforcing the conversion to Christianity, of all the Mahomedans 
in the garrison. This single fact should satisfy Mr. Buchanan, 
of the impolicy and manifest danger of agitating religious 
questions among the natives of India." — P. 150. 

The logic of it appears to stand thus : The troops were 
alarmed and enraged at the supposed approach of five 
hundred soldiers to drive them into Christianity, or Christi- 
anity into them, with their bayonets ; the missionaries are 
no soldiers, have no bayonets, and are not a twentieth part 
of five hundred ; therefore the troops must be alarmed and 
enraged at the attempts of the missionaries. Or if the 
passage would evasively be explained to mean, that the 
proceedings of the Christian reformers would be sure to 
give occasion for such false reports, and that such reports 
would always be sure to excite indignation and commotion, — 
it has not the smallest force. Eor if the troops to whom 
such reports have been carried, have uniformly found them 
to prove false, and that no such operators or implements of 



124 HINDOO IDOLATBY AND CHRISTIANITY. 

conversion have been ever brought into their sight, they 
must be incomparably more stupid than their English friends 
will allow their race to be represented, if their indignation 
does not, at the second time, turn on the miscreants, who- 
ever they may be, that attempt to alarm them by false 
information. If they have not thus much sense, the case is 
bad indeed ; for it will always be easy for the native princes, 
or any discontented or malignant individual of lower rank, 
or for the emissaries of a hostile European power, to employ 
the vagabond Saniassis or Eakeers, and numberless other 
fit instruments of mischief, or even for any of this worthless 
tribe to employ themselves, in propagating reports in the 
native army that the government means to force them vi et 
armis out of their superstition ; nor can this be at all pre- 
vented, by this writer's proposed "silencing for ever" of 
the missionaries. It will only be necessary to improve the 
falsehood, by saying that the silencing was a mere temporary 
trick of government— that the missionaries have been suffered 
to open again, and have received a whole ship's cargo of 
auxiliaries from England. 

"We might here remark that the Hindoos are, by this 
Vindicator, made exceedingly good or exceedingly bad, just 
as suits the immediate purpose. Eirst, they need none of 
the moral improvements which Christianity would pretend 
to bring them ; when he is maintaining this, there is not a 
good quality under heaven in which these people do not 
excel : — but next, it is dangerous to attempt the introduction 
of Christianity among them ; when this is to be proved, then 
they are perfect devils of rage and revenge, prompt to every 
atrocity, and certain to repay the good wishes and kind 
efforts of their instructors with "extermination." The 
same may be said of his representations of the character of 
their " religion ; " when it is to be proved such, that Christi- 
anity is unworthy to become its substitute, then it is sub- 
lime, beneficent, and of the best moral tendency ; but when 
he is to show the dire hazards attendant on permitting a 
mission, then the spirit of this same religion is described in 
the following terms : — 

"With despotic influence, and mounted on the pinnacle of 
superstition, it attracts within its vortex all the discordant 
atoms of civil feuds, and rival animosities ; and stands, like the 



HINDOO IDOLATBY AND CHRISTIANITY. 125 

genius of Punishment, ' with a black hue and a red eye,' mena- 
cing desolation ; — or like the demon of Distrust, with dark, 
suspicious, and cautious step, it silently approaches the mansions 
of peace, with the contracted brow of sullen discontent ; till 
urged by the congenial assimilation of universal dissatisfaction, 
like the fell tyrant of the forest, it springs, unsuspected, on the 
foe, and devotes him to destruction." — P. 155. 

"We should sooner have proceeded to what certainly forms 
the most prominent feature of this publication, the explicit 
assertion and illustration of the excellence of the Hindoo 
theology and morality, as placed in competition with 
Christianity, if we could really have attached any parti- 
cular importance to such a phenomenon in literature. 
As appearing in print in England, such a thing may un- 
doubtedly be called a phenomenon, even notwithstanding the 
gradation by which we have come to the show, through 
the respectable exhibitions of Messrs. Twining and Scott 
Waring : but we apprehend that such things are common 
enough in the coffee-houses, and at the mess, in Calcutta ; 
and therefore any of our friends that may have been there, 
would be apt to divert themselves at our simplicity, if we 
continued long in the attitude of wonder. The singularity 
of the thing consists, in the heroic impudence of bringing 
such an importation from the camps and taverns of India, 
to be obtruded on the attention of people here, whose 
curiosity has been tolerably saturated by this writer's two 
predecessors. But we suspect that something depended on 
his performance or non-performance of this feat : the piece 
has a good deal the appearance which might be expected 
in a thing done for a wager, unwarily offered, in a convivial 
hour, by some good companion, who imagined that no man 
had effrontery enough to write such a pamphlet, and was 
also of opinion that this author had not faculties to make a 
pamphlet at all. On this latter account especially, it might 
have been thought the safest challenge possible ; for it 
might be very well known that he could not read one line 
of the sacred books of the Hindoos, though he has passed 
so many years in their country ; it might not be difficult to 
guess, what he somewhere acknowledges, that the slight 
smattering of Hindoo mythology in his possession, was be- 
stowed on him by the illuminated wandering rabble of holy 



126 HINDOO IDOLATRY AND CHRISTIANITY. 

beggars ; and it would be tolerably evident, that his dialect, 
his ingenuity, and his logic, were — perfectly on a level 
indeed with the merits of the cause, but a small matter defi- 
cient for the task of its advocate. But his courage was up to 
the " sticking-place," and as, according to the good homely 
adage, " where there is a will, there will be a way," he had 
the good fortune to learn that a few books had been 
translated by Sir "William Jones, Mr. "Wilkins, and one or 
two more scholars. He eagerly possessed himself of the 
Institutes of Menu, the Ayeen Ackbary, the Heetopades, 
and the Greeta ; and went to work on this immense mass of 
learning, which he might get through in a fortnight, 
without refusing himself the entertainment of many a lounge 
at Christie's, and many a saunter in the Park. It would 
seem as if his time had been fixed for him ; or it might 
possibly have been from a sort of slashing soldierly im- 
petuosity, that he goes directly to the cutting of large pieces 
out of Menu, and serves them up at his " repast," as he plea- 
santly calls it, without the smallest dressing or garnish. It 
would generally have been supposed, that when Christianity 
was to be in effect exploded, and another religion declared 
the legitimate regent of the human mind throughout a vast 
empire, no little was to be done in the way of introduction 
and preparation, by an array of general principles, by deep 
historical research, by a statement of evidence on each cause 
respectively, and by a careful comparison of the principles 
and tendency of two immensely different systems. The 
renowned Mr. Thomas Taylor would take us through leagues 
and leagues of dissertation, historical, metaphysical, and 
mathematical, previously to introducing us to his pantheon, 
and putting the censer into our hands. But this was not to 
the taste, nor according to the habits of our mythological 
soldier; who, even in the operations of his martial profession, 
we dare surmise, was never detached by his commander from 
the downright point-blank business in which he could be 
of some service, to the execution of designs requiring skilful 
management, ingenuity, and combination, in which he 
could be of none. He begins his illustration of the excel- 
lence of the moral and religious system of the Hindoos, by 
just saying, that the missionaries scandalize their Sastras, 
as being filled with childish fables : and he then falls directly 






HINDOO IDOLATRY AND CHRISTIANITY. 127 

on the grand substance of his undertaking, that of 
transcribing several dozen of pages from the Sastras, for he 
really knows no better than to suppose that the 
Heetopades and the G-eeta are of that class of books ! He 
pauses one moment, here and there, to ask whether these 
are mere fables for children, as the missionaries had 
profanely asserted ; and at length concludes the achievement 
with this paragraph : — 

" If the ' Sastras of Barbarians ! ' thus manifest an exalted idea 
of God ; a comprehensive sense of moral duties ; a belief in the 
immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and 
punishments ; — what is it, then, that the missionaries propose 
teaching to the Hindoos ?" — P. 44. 

To this question, put at the end of an assortment of 
passages, selected carefully from the above-mentioned 
Indian books, — of which passages a considerable number 
convey positions which must, even in the selector's own 
opinion, be absurd and false — no believer in Christianity, we 
suppose, will hold himself called upon to reply in behalf of 
that divine system. The man who, together with some good 
and some indifferent moral maxims, can select sentences 
about the study of the Veda being the highest means of 
felicity both in this world and the other, about the Divine 
Spirit being the whole assemblage of gods, about the com- 
position of the body of that Divine Spirit, the solar and 
igneous light being his digestive heat and visual organs, 
water being his corporeal fluid, the earth being the terrene 
parts of his fabric, his heart being the moon, th« guardians 
of eight regions being his auditory nerves, his progressive 
motion being Vishnu, his muscular force Hara, his organs of 
speech Agni, his excretion Mitra, his procreation Brahma : 
about the punishments of the wicked in Asipatravana, the 
sword-leaved forest, their being mangled by ravens and owls, 
swallowing cakes boiling hot, assuming the form of beasts, 
and suffering successive agonizing births ; about the certain 
destruction which will fall on any family which a woman not 
duly honoured may choose to curse ; about the tremendous 
guilt and punishment of tasting spirituous liquors, with 
grave information (for the benefit of distillers) of the several 
substances from which these liquors may be made ; about 
the punishment of a false witness by being bound under 



128 HINDOO IDOLA.TEY AND CHRISTIANITY. 

water with snaky cords by Varuna, the lord of the Ocean, 
during a hundred transmigrations, — the man who can bring 
an assemblage of such follies, and, by implication, the 
collective mass of mythological fooleries and preposterous 
morals, of filthy rites and human sacrifices, of which these 
selections are but an infinitesimal part, and set them in the 
face of Christianity as a triumphant challenge of comparison, 
is not a creature to be reasoned with by a Christian. He is 
an absolute Pariah of morality and sense ; and it would be 
a profanation of Christianity to talk to him about it. That 
sacred system must not be invited by its friends to stoop for 
one moment to the ignominy of being compared with a 
superstition which combines every monstrosity which could 
result from priestcraft, poetry, and madness; it would be 
the same thing as to solicit an angel from heaven to come 
and stand in comparison with a Saniassi, or with a Bengal 
officer. In making a brief remark or two, we wish therefore 
to place Christianity as much as possible out of the question. 
The leading remark is, that there is no talking rationally 
about religions and their respective properties and merits, 
without a reference to the grand question whether they are 
true or false ; that is, whether as professing to be a divine 
communication, any given system brings evidence of that 
origin or does not. If a professed religion is destitute of 
this evidence, it is bad in its very radix : it is a wicked 
contrivance to impose, and assuredly for a bad purpose too, 
on the human mind ; and this being the very basis of its 
character, it is idle and odious trifling to descant in its 
favour on a few things good in themselves, which it was 
impossible for even a system of falsehood to be framed with- 
out involving. The good maxims or sublime sentiments 
occasionally found in a pagan religion are but like the minor 
virtues, which it is possible an impostor or murderer may 
possess, if the system as a whole is essentially founded in 
fraud, and maintains its existence by deceiving the under- 
standings of its believers. And this is the demonstrable 
character of all religions on earth but one* : that one brings 
with it a prodigious force of evidence that it is what it 

* The Jewish is of course considered as included with the 
Christian religion. 



HIKDOO IDOLATBY AND CHEISTIANITY. 129 

professes to be, a direct communication from the Almighty ; 
in other words, that it is authentic as a whole: there is 
therefore no longer any kind of competition or comparison 
between that one and any other systems assuming the name 
of religion. Set in contrast with them, it is not to be 
considered as differing from them in degree, but in the very 
essence of its institution. It comes authoritatively from 
the Omnipotent ; they blaspheme him by falsely proclaiming 
that they do so. To put down, then, the impious jargon in 
favour of the Hindoo "religion," we have only to say that 
that religion is false ; that though there are occasional truths 
in the detail, the system is false. 

This sentence being passed on a superstition, the investi- 
gation of its properties is reduced to a matter of curiosity 
only; and as such, that of the Hindoos may be highly 
interesting to inquisitive and philosophic men ; just as the 
murderer Patch, when no longer regarded as a man, was said 
to have been, however, an admirable subject for dissection. 
The leading properties of this superstition are exceedingly 
conspicuous. First, it is the most marvellous system of 
priestcraft that the world ever saw, or the spirit of darkness 
ever inspired. The Brahmins are every thing, and every 
thing is for the Brahmins. It is astonishing to see with 
what ingenuity and vigilance their interest has complicated 
itself with every thing existing or acting throughout the 
whole economy of society. All the large and palpable 
advantages they are privileged to seize rampant ; but the 
policy of the system has also insinuated their monopoly and 
precedence into all the minutest circumstances; a spider 
could not get into a narrower angle, an earwig could not 
edge into a closer crevice, than the craft of Brahminism is 
seen to do throughout every page of the Institutes of this 
superstition. It bears on every part of it the glaring 
evidence of having been framed, not for the benefit of man- 
kind as a genus, but of the privileged class as a species. 

Adverting to what may be called the theology of the 
system, no one denies that a number of very abstracted and 
elevated ideas relating to a Deity are found in the ancient 
books, whether these ideas had descended traditionally from 
the primary communication of divine truth to our race, or 
had diverged so far towards the east from the revelation 



130 HINDOO IDOLATRY AND CHRISTIANITY. 

imparted through Moses to the Jews. But it is also 
obvious that the Indian writers had a very imperfect hold of 
these ideas, and tried in vain to fix them in a stability of 
definition, or prolong them through their speculations as the 
stamina of their doctrines. Immediately after a noble 
thought there shall come a train of fantastic and puerile 
conceits, adapted to prove that the superior conceptions 
were not original in minds so little capable of habitually 
thinking up to their level. They had some notion of a 
supreme spirit ; but this idea had a wonderfully slight 
influence to prevent or to dignify the dreams of mythology ; 
for their literature swarms with an infinity of gods or 
debtas, many of them of a ridiculous, and many of an 
insufferably odious description. This Vindicator is angry 
at Dr. Buchanan for asserting that the Hindoos have " no 
moral gods." But the Doctor may assert it again with 
undiminished confidence, and support himself with such an 
accumulation of evidence as no reader's disgust would let 
him go to the end of. There is not one of the divinities 
of any notorious consequence that is not competently 
stocked with vices, according to the sacred books of 
their adorers ; and we wonder this new worshipper should 
not have been kept, by the consciousness of his profound 
ignorance, from the folly of exposing himself so far as to 
adduce the Indian Triad in refutation of Dr. Buchanan's 
assertion ! 

He talks, with delight, of the pious and moral allegory 
which is perfectly obvious and intelligible to him throughout 
the whole region of Hindoo mythology ; and cites, as an 
example, Doorga fighting Mykassoor in the form of a 
buffalo, which means — how is it possible it can mean any 
thing else ? — that virtue wars with vice ; which notable piece 
of instruction, he says, is exhibited in pictures in ever so 
many places in Calcutta, where vice is no doubt very much 
restrained by this palpable and formidable lesson, this 
"speaking picture of good sense," as he calls the disgusting 
and hideous figure of Doorga. True enough, much of the 
mythology was originally founded in allegory ; but boundless 
extravagancies of imagination have, in most cases totally 
obscured the original meaning, and not one Hindoo in a hun- 
dred, that hears the story, knows or cares anything about 



HINDOO IDOLATRY AND CHRISTIANITY. 131 

the moral ; by which neglect, indeed, he probably suffers very 
trifling loss in the article of religion. 

But mythology enters but little into the "religion" of a 
great proportion of the Hindoos ; for the lower order are a 
very little more than mere worshippers of idols, and not a 
few of the unlearned part of even the Brahmins fail to carry 
their ideas beyond the idol, to which this writer pretends 
that even the most ignorant approach with no other view, 
than to aid their minds to raise their contemplations to 
" celestial beings." 

It is well known that excesses of indecency, of a grossness 
almost inconceivable, and certainly unutterable, are practised 
as rites of worship before some of the idols. The Vindi- 
cator, however, says, — 

"Of the nature of the ' disgusting vices practised before these 
idols,' I am entirely ignorant ; for though I have visited many 
temples of celebrity, in Bengal, Benares, !M utha, Canonge, and 
Hurdnar, and a hundred places besides, yet I have never wit- 
nessed any exhibition at their shrines that bore the appearance 
of indecency."— P. 100. 

He may be perfectly sincere in this declaration, and yet 
have actually witnessed such vices ; for there is a moral 
sense necessary, as well as the sense of seeing, to perceive 
fully the disgusting quality of vice and indecency. He has 
probably seen in these hundred temples, very many times, 
the direct worship of the Ling am III — but it was not worth 
while, certainly it was not, to indulge any squeamish feelings 
of European moral taste ! "We could here fill many pages 
with loathsome descriptions, now on our table, of what it 
must have been inevitable for him sometimes to have seen ; 
and it cannot be for fear of hurting the moral sensibility 
which has been refined into Indian delicacy, that we forbear 
to insert them. 

As to the morality of the Hindoo system, it would 
necessarily be of the most depraved character, if there were 
no other cause than the castes. A large part of the moral 
code must relate to the interchange of equity among human 
beings ; but what is to be the basis of such a code, when 
these human beings are assumed, or rather made, to be se- 
veral distinct races of creatures, who can scarcely have any 

k2 



132 waring's letters on india. 

principles of social justice in common, — and when every rule 
and precaution for the preservation of this distinction, 
operates to the exclusion of benevolence ? "What will be 
the spirit of that morality, of which it is an express injunc- 
tion on the Brahmin to despise the Sudra ? ( Between the 
pride and contempt of the one, and the wretched degradation 
of the other, all kind affections, and all generous exercise of 
justice are annihilated. Apart however, from the castes, the 
Hindoo morality defies all comparison for absurdity. The 
compressed view of it, in the Institutes of Menu, is extolled 
by this unfortunate writer, as the model of wisdom, and is 
most exactly deserving of his praise; forit is probably the most 
ridiculous and abominable assemblage of absurdity and 
priestcraft that ever insulted the slaves of superstition in any 
age or country. 



VINDICATION OE THE BAPTIST MISSIONAKIES. 

A Reply to a Letter, addressed to John Scott Waring, Esq., in Refu- 
tation of the illiberal and unjust Observations and Strictures of 
the anonymous Writer of that Letter. By Major Scott Waring. 
8vo. 1808. 

A class of saints in India, — and it is the most sanctified 
class, — commands the admiration of the natives, and excites 
the ridicule of foreigners, by the exhibition of limbs dis- 
torted and stiffened by a voluntary penance to please the 
gods. It must be amusing enough to the profane, to see 
4ie solemn gravity of countenance with which the yogi or 
falceer comes along with his arms raised and crossed over 
his head for life, or with one arm sent bolt upright froi 
the shoulder, never again to interfere in the concerns of 
its owner, and never to come in contact with his persoi 
unless mischance or malice should happen to snap dowi 
the withered stick. It must be curious to consider, that 
while other men's limbs will perform an infinite number oi 
optional movements, his will remain faithful to their " rel 
gious" crook or poker-fashion, and will be found cutting 
the air in just the same figure, if the public should b( 



VINDICATION OF THE BAPTIST MISSIONAEIES. 133 

favoured with the sight of them twenty years hence. 
Something analogous to this appears to have taken place 
in the mental faculties of our worthy acquaintance, Major 
Scott Waring. "When in the preface to his " Observa- 
tions" he first set himself forth in a disgusting posture, we 
could have no idea that he was, to the exactest nicety, to 
stiffen in that very predicament ; from the evident aversion 
to Christianity, we might indeed have expected perform- 
ances not less true in their general spirit to Paganism than 
the first ; but it could not be foreseen that from the 
moment of finishing that first, the writer's mind should 
become incapable of altering, thenceforth, the action of its 
faculties, even in the smallest perceptible degree, and thafc, 
as a true intellectual faheer, it should be cramped into one 
precise specific mode of inviolable deformity. Such how- 
ever seems to be the case ; two large pamphlets have quickly 
succeeded the first, and the three taken together form such 
an instance of hopeless iteration, of absolute dead sameness, 
as the English public never saw before ; and it will happen 
contrary to all present probability, if this most unfortunate 
man do not continue to the very last day of his life repeat- 
ing incessantly, without the chance of any variation, even of 
phrase, that the missionaries are mad Calvinistic sectaries, 
that the Indians never can be converted, that it is madness 
to think of it, that there has never been one good convert, 
&c. &c. &c. 

It is certainly a hapless condition to have the mind thus 
set and shrivelled into one unalterable and degrading posi- 
tion of its faculties ; but if we regret to see the spectacle, it 
is not on account of Christianity, as the object of the fixed 
enmity of such a mind ; for no mode of hostility can be 
more innoxious than the pure insensate reiteration, without 
the possibility of a diversification or novelty, of a few false 
or futile propositions. Not, however, that the Christian 
religion could have had anything to fear from the slender 
talents of our fakeer, even if this fatal arrest had not anni- 
hilated their free agency, by crooking and clinching them 
into this one peculiar cramp of impiety. 

In making a very few remarks on the assertions repeated 
in our author's second and third pamphlets, it is not of the 
smallest consequence which of these assertions is noticed 



134 WAKING'S LETTERS ON INDIA. 

first. It is said over again, a countless number of times, 
that the increase of missionaries, bibles, and tracts, had 
been represented to the mutinous troops at Yellore, and 
had greatly contributed to rouse their apprehensions that 
the Government intended to force them into Christianity. 
Now whether he did or did not receive this account from 
" gentlemen in India," we can imagine his anger and vexation 
on finding it proved an utter falsehood, in a recent and deci- 
sive publication,* attributed to a person of the very highest 
authority, who has informed the public, that in a very long 
and minute examination of a great number of the surviving 
sepoys, before a commission of inquiry at Madras, none of 
those troops, in assigning the causes of their anger and 
tumult, made any mention of missionaries or Christian hooks, 
which beyond all question they would eagerly have done in 
extenuation of their conduct, if that conduct had in any 
degree whatever been prompted by such a cause. For the 
truth of this statement, he appeals to the official reports of 
that commission, now deposited in the India House. It 
will take some considerable time, for the unfortunate Major 
to collect himself up from the splinters and fragments in 
which he is dashed by this demolishing blow. 

A very favourite sentence in all the three pamphlets, and 
which is repeated beyond the patience of enumeration, is 
that unless the missionaries are recalled, or at least all their 
Christian operations suppressed, our Indian empire will be 
terminated within twelve months, by a general insurrection 
of the people. Now the only English missionaries who 
have as yet been able to make any very active exertions, 
are those in Bengal; and this same man says that these 
missionaries have been confined to a very narrow scope, and 
have produced but a slight effect of any kind on the minds 
of the people. 

He incessantly cites the expression of one of the mission- 
aries, Mr. Marshman, that the appearance of one of them 
in a bigoted city "would create universal alarm," and asks 
how there can be any safety for our empire and people if 
such men are permitted to remain. It is to be regretted 

* Considerations on the Practicability, Policy, and Obligation 
of communicating to the Natives of India the Knowledge of 
Christianity. 



YOfDICATIOlS' OE THE BAPTIST MISSIONARIES. 135 

that Mr. Marshman had not used a more precise term, or 
added some explanation, in speaking of the sensation caused 
in the popular mind by the appearance of the missionaries ; 
but if he has used a term of a signification too little defined 
for so important a subject, is it not the last excess of 
absurdity for a man in England to assume to interpret this 
term by any other rule than that supplied by this missionary 
himself and his associates ? Is it not a stupidity beyond 
example to talk and rant in a way which assumes that the 
missionary, in this single expression, must mean some other 
kind or degree of alarm than that which he and the others 
describe and illustrate, with so much simplicity, diversity, 
and particularity of narrative, in the substance of their 
communications ? Does this man imagine that, in writing 
the expression in question, Mr. Marshman was oetrayed for 
once into the acknowledgment of some quite different kind 
of alarm, which had been so carefully concealed, that not a 
hint of it had been suffered to transpire in the numerous 
letters and journals, till this unlucky sentence revealed the 
secret? Verily it was most marvellous, that after Mr. 
Marshman and his associates had with unequalled care and 
collusion kept this alarm a profound secret for a number 
of years, this identical and discreet Mr. Marshman should 
deliberately sit down to declare it in a paper which he had 
no doubt would be printed in Europe. Or say that this 
dire secret was communicated in confidence to Mr. Puller, 
the secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society (for the 
letter was addressed to him), and that it was through his 
simplicity that it was betrayed in England. ]S"o, no, it had 
been much more for the ease of the Major's galled feelings 
that Mr. Euller had been a man simple enough to have been 
capable of falling, in such a case, into such an error. But 
it is quite ludicrous to see this unlucky phrase of Mr. 
Marshman reverted to so many score of times, with such an 
air of significance and solemnity, as if it had let out some 
portentous discovery, and as if this one solitary expression 
contained the sole and entire information to be found in all 
the ample statements of the missionaries, respecting the 
manner in which they are regarded and received by the 
natives. The kind of alarm to which Mr. Marshman refer- 
red, is illustrated through every sheet of the Periodical 



136 waking's letters on india. 

Accounts ; every reader is competent from those documents 
to judge of its nature, extent, and probable result ; and 
every reader whose glimmering of sense has not been extin- 
guished in prejudice and irreligion, can see that an alarm 
which never excites the people to anything more than occa- 
sional expressions of abuse, which never asks the missionary 
whether he is not commissioned by his government, nor 
ever expresses to him a suspicion chat he is so, and which 
permits the unprotected itinerant to return with impunity 
and without the smallest apprehensiou, to the same place, 
and on the same errand, as often as he pleases, may fairly 
be allowed at least a few centuries to grow into a despera- 
tion and a compact which shall threaten the safety of the 
English and their empire. 

At the suggestion of the writer of the anonymous letter 
to which this third pamphlet is a reply, the Major has 
furnished himself with the abatement of the Baptist Mis- 
sionary Society, which by giving him a few facts not pre- 
viously known to him, has for a few moments a little relieved 
him from the distress and durance of desperate sameness, 
and thrown one very transient gleam of something like 
novelty, over a wide tract of incomparably dull and stagnant 
composition. He charges the missionaries with having gone 
illegally to India, with violating the law of the country in 
itinerating without passports, and of having been " in open 
rebellion" at the time when two new missionaries, arriving 
at Calcutta, and being commanded by an order of council 
to return to Europe, pleaded the protection of the Danish 
Government at Serampore, where they had joined their 
brethren previously to the passing of this order. But little 
needs be said on any of these particulars. If, in 1793, 
Messrs. Carey and Thomas found the government so adverse 
to permit any attempt toward Christianizing the Hindoos, 
(even before there were Twinings and Scott "Warings so 
covetous of disgrace as to rant about the danger and intoler- 
ance of such an attempt), that a passage to India could not 
be obtained in an English ship, they must have felt a less 
degree of zeal than good men are accustomed to feel for a 
great object, if they could not have resolved to put their 
undertaking on the ground of committing themselves to a 
Superior Power, and abiding the consequence. That con- 



VINDICATION OP THE BAPTIST MISSIONARIES. 137 

sequence proved to be, an -ultimate necessity of retiring from 
the British territory ; and thus even an enemy might allow, 
that something like an even balance was struck between the 
missionaries and the Christian government, which they had 
so insulted and endangered, by venturing, unauthorized, to 
touch a corner of its million of square miles, with a view to 
impart the gospel to some of the miserable pagan inhabitants. 
Thus they went out unauthorized ; and if it should be 
admitted, that the refusal of a passage in an English ship, 
was really and strictly a prohibition of their entering India 
(which however their admission in India proved that it was 
not), and if it should then be asked — Was not this violating 
a primary Christian obligation of obedience to government ? 
it would become a Christian to answer, that this obligation 
does not extend to any thing purely religious ; for if it did, 
it would by the same law extend to every thing in religion 
which it would be possible for a government to force within 
its cognizance, and would make it a duty to hold the authority 
of the magistrate more sacred than any other authority in 
the universe, even were he to forbid a Christian teacher to 
carry religious instruction into the next parish, or the next 
village, or the next house, or even avowedly and visibly to 
give religious instruction to the persons in his own house ; 
and this would be an obligation, which we need not say that 
no Christian's conscience was ever yet capable of feeling. 

It should however be observed, that Messrs. Carey and 
Thomas and their friends, did not feel themselves precisely 
in such a dilemma. They knew that the refusal of an 
authorized passage did not amount to an absolute prohibi- 
tion of their entering India ; and they knew besides, that if 
it had, both our own and all other governments are willing 
to connive at many things which they do not choose expressly 
to authorize ; and they trusted that, if once they were in 
India, the disinterested purity of their motives, and the 
peacefulness of their conduct, would secure them a silent 
toleration in the prosecution of a work, in which it would 
be evident it was impossible they could have any political 
or lucrative object in view. Such a connivance they did 
experience a considerable time, and were thankful that a 
purely benevolent and religious design could obtain even 
thus much indulgence ; while they knew that the purpose of 



138 waking's letters on india. 

solely making a fortune would have obtained not tolerance, 
but a full legal sanction, for the departure from England, and 
the pursuits in India. 

After fixing their principal residence within the Danish 
settlement, they thought it right to continue to avail them- 
selves of the privilege of connivance, to itinerate into the 
British dominions. Nothing was done clandestinely; the 
government knew that they travelled to various places to 
preach to the natives, and that they did this without pass- 
ports ; it knew that they dispersed tracts and testaments ; 
it knew that several missionaries had been gradually added 
to the number ; and knowing all this, the government ap- 
pointed the chief of these missionaries to a highly respect- 
able station in the college of Fort "William, while the 
principal clergymen of the Bengal establishment became 
the zealous friends of the men and of their designs. Now 
what would have been thought of the sense of Mr. Carey 
and his associates, if they had been seized with a violent 
anxiety to forego their privileges, and to fetter themselves 
with a law, of which the governing power was content to 
suspend the operation ? 

Some acknowledgment is perhaps due to our author, for 
relieving the dull depravity of his uniform pages, with here 
and there an extra piece of folly, so ludicrous as to brisken 
the desponding reader, and enable him to get on half a 
sheet further. The best thing of this sort in his last pam- 
phlet, is where he talks of the missionaries being " in open 
rebellion," on the occasion of their pleading the rights of 
Danish subjects, for the two additional ones who were com- 
manded to return to Europe. To talk of nine men, without 
a pistol, sword, or pike, among them all, being "in open 
rebellion" against the power of a great empire, had been 
almost sufficiently absurd, even for this unfortunate man 
and his associates, if these nine men had really been sub- 
jects of the British government ; but it does sound like a 
fatuity in which this ill-fated man can have no rival asso- 
ciates, when it is said of a company of persons who were 
absolutely the subjects of another government, the former 
seven by their formally recognized establishment under it 
for a number of years, and two strangers by their being 
added to the number, through the conveyance of an Ame- 



YXNDICATIOIS" OE THE BAPTIST MISSIOISABIES. 139 

rican ship cleared for Seranrpore. It was by sufferance, 
that they were at any time on British territory ; but on the 
Danish they were by authority. We suppose our author, 
when he was at once an officer and clergyman in India, 
used to get into a violent fret when any soldiers not belong- 
ing to the corps under his command happened to be near 
him, and had not the manners humbly to ask for his orders, 
and devoutly listen to his reading of prayers. 

By the way, he piques himself not a little on this exploit 
of reading prayers, and says, in so many words, he " thinks 
he made a much better clergyman than any Calvinistic 
Methodist or Baptist in India would have made, for pro- 
testants of the Church of England." (Eeply, p. 41.) As- 
suredly, had we been of his congregation, we should have 
endeavoured to comport ourselves in a manner worthy of 
protestants of the Church of England ; but yet we cannot 
help imagining the distress to which we might on some 
unfortunate occasion have been reduced, by the too pos- 
sible circumstance of the worthy Major's Prayer-Book being 
mislaid or wickedly secreted. It would have overwhelmed 
us with mortification, to hear perhaps some ignorant cor- 
poral say to his comrade, that the Prayer-Book, not the 
man, was the chaplain: nothing indeed could have been 
more stupid or false, but still we fear we should have had 
no prayers that day. Or if, to complete the mischief, some 
layman, just like Mr. Carey, had by ill luck happened to 
come among us at this moment of distress and confusion, 
and had obtained permission this once to pray for us, 
Major and all, in his devout, affectionate, and rational 
strain, with his fine fluency of expression, and a happy 
adaptation to immediate characters and circumstances, we 
cannot but fear that though we as well as the Major might 
have remained unshaken, the stupid soldiery might have 
fancied this a far superior kind of performance to the 
Major's reading, and might, the next Sunday, have deserted 
to the Methodists by dozens, rank and file. The Major and 
we, however, should have entertained all due contempt for 
the taste and opinion of the rabble, the very dregs of the 
people. 

Throughout the Major's pamphlets, especially the two 
latter ones, there is a most laborious effort to flatter and 



140 

coax the clergy and other members of the Established 
Church, while an equal toil is sustained to bury alive all 
sectaries, and the missionaries as sectaries, under as large a 
heap of abuse as this man's vulgar malice could accumulate. 
But, really, even in this last humble vocation he fails sadly. 
He is too sterile even to invent or vary terms and phrases 
of obloquy; and " madmen," and " illiterate bigots," with 
the addition of " hot-headed Calvinists," nearly circum- 
scribe the reach and resources of his vocabulary. This fact 
might warn him, that he has now done nearly all he can do, 
and had better be content without afflicting his faculties 
with any further trial, since when a man fails in that thing 
which he is confessedly able to do best, it is all over with 
him as to the matter of talents. And as to the attempt to 
cajole the members of the Established Church, it will defeat 
itself, we should think ; as all serious persons in that 
church, who may read the Major's pamphlets, will adopt 
the memorable words of the ancient, "What bad thing 
have we done, that has obtained us this man's praise?" 
But he will not leave them at a loss ; he most fervently 
extols the church and its clergy for having scarcely ever 
made an effort to diffuse the gospel into heathen countries ; 
while the hated sectaries, without the smallest view to 
their own interest, are forsaking their homes, parting from 
their friends, surrendering for ever all possibilities of ease, 
luxury, or wealth, and compassing sea and land to make 
proselytes. This is the most sagacious artifice by which 
it was ever attempted to wheedle the members of the es- 
tablishment, and the choicest compliment ever paid to their 
Christian principles. But even if those Christian prin- 
ciples were as debased as he assumes, by extolling them on 
the ground of such merits and such a contrast, he will find 
that the members of the church are not so bereft of policy 
as to thank him for his compliments, or allow him to consti- 
tute himself their representative. They will be aware that 
nothing under heaven would have a more powerful and 
instantaneous effect to multiply dissenters, by driving con- 
scientious men out of the church, than for the clergy and 
distinguished members of that church to suffer their princi- 
ples to be identified, in the view of the public, with those 
of this unhappy man and his coadjutors. There may be 



YTKDICATION OP THE BAPTIST MISSIONARIES. 141 

some few clergymen who would not abscond from their 
congregations and their Christian connexions, from the 
ignominy of having been cited by him as coinciding with 
his notions and wishes : his friend the Bishop of Asaph, of 
whom he asks, with an incomparably ludicrous simplicity, 
" Was he a bigot or irreligious?" would no doubt, had he 
been living, have braved such disgrace ; but the great 
majority of churchmen will feel it necessary to their 
characters, even if they do not to their consciences, to 
resist the attempt to brand them with the stigma of an 
alliance of principle with a man who abhors nothing on 
earth so much as the attempts of Christianity to extirpate 
the abominations of Paganism ; and some of the more 
serious of them will be so confounded to find that their church 
must acknowledge such a man for one of its members, that 
as the only consolation for belonging to it, they will attach 
themselves wholly to that evangelical section of it which he 
hates. 

The missionaries are sectaries, and therefore totally unfit 
and disqualified, as a very large portion of these pamphlets 
is occupied in repeating, to teach Christianity, even if a 
mission ivere to be permitted in Hindostan. Now what is 
the meaning of all this ? Does the unfortunate man really 
mean to say that the Established Church is infallible, and 
that too while it is before his face that its members are 
unable to agree as to the purport of its articles, or to the 
extent of the obligation under which they are to be 
subscribed, and are indefinitely divided and opposed in 
their opinions, forming a political compact for a temporal 
advantage of religious parties who are respectively schis- 
matics in each other's estimation? If the infallibility of 
such a church, or indeed of any church, is an absurdity too 
gross for even this man to advance, where is the sense or 
decency of railing against sectaries ? If the church may be 
wrong, the sectaries, or some of them, may be right ; the 
authority for imputing error is perfectly equal on either 
side, and is no other than freedom of individual judgment — a 
freedom evidently not to be contravened but by demon- 
strated infallibility or the vilest tyranny. But perhaps the 
Major, forbearing to make any claim of infallibility for the 
Established Church, and any pretence of better natural 



142 waking's lettees on india. 

faculties in the minds of its members than in those of the 
sectaries, will say, however, that the religious instructions 
and studies, from which churchmen form their theological 
opinions, are infinitely better adapted to give them a true 
knowledge of Christianity, and to prepare them to impart it 
to heathens, than those by which such men as Mr. Carey 
and his friends are qualified for that important office. How 
so ? The profound and devout study of the Scriptures is 
confessedly the grand process for understanding religion, 
and the sedulous, and repeated, and varied explication of 
them to persons under every diversity of circumstances, is 
the best imaginable discipline for acquiring the talent of 
instruction and persuasion; on this ground we may defy 
any church in Europe, whether established or schismatical, 
to supply more accomplished missionaries than Mr. Carey 
and several of his friends, — men whose biblical labours are 
prosecuted with an ardour which threatens our pagans at 
home, and the Brahmins and the Bonzes of the East, with a 
translation of the Bible into every language of Asia in the 
course of a few years, and who at the same time have 
preached more in a twelvemonth than perhaps any of the 
dignitaries of any establishment in Europe. And pray what 
does the sapience of our Major imagine it likely that the 
subscription to Thirty-nine Articles, and the imposed hand 
of a prelate could have added to men like these ; and which 
of the Christian doctrines have they failed to understand or 
explain, for want of these momentous pre-requisites ? But 
it is not the essential endowments of the men that the Major 
would care about, if he could permit any mission at all to 
Hindostan. The only question with him would be, whether 
they had passed through certain formalities of mere human 
and political appointment, and declared themselves members 
of a certain ecclesiastical corporatioa, or whether they acted 
simply as men to whom heaven has given understanding 
and the New Testament, and who can acknowledge no other 
authority in religion. If the latter, not all the virtue and 
learning of Carey could obtain license or toleration ; if the 
former, the men would do perfectly well, though their 
qualifications should reach no further than the ability of 
reading, like the Major when he was ehaplain, a number of 
printed prayers and sermons. He has no idea of religion as 



VINDICATION Or THE BAPTIST MISSIONARIES. 143 

a tiling which exists and can be tanght independently of 
the appointments of the state ; and when its conveyance to 
a foreign country is the subject in question, the only view 
in which his unfortunate understanding is capable of 
regarding it, is that of an article of commerce, under the 
distinction of lawful and contraband. The exportation of 
Christianity from England in any other than English 
bottoms, and by any other than persons of the Established 
Church, is to be considered, he thinks, as a branch of the 
smuggling trade, and ought to be prohibited or punished 
accordingly. This really appears to be the whole extent of 
any conception that he has on the subject ; so that when he 
says (Eeply, p. 80), that Messrs. Carey and Thomas "were 
smuggled out to India" (he writes it in italics), and when 
he somewhere applies the same term to the sending of a 
missionary to Buenos Ayres, he really does not seem to 
wish to be understood as adopting a figurative expression. 

His anger at this last transaction breaks out afresh in 
each successive pamphlet ; and he takes the trouble to say 
over again, that it was a violation of the articles of capitu- 
lation, which engaged to the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres 
the free exercise of their religion. It would be hopeless to 
repeat to such a besotted understanding that freedom is 
violated by nothing but coercion. But why does he not say 
again what he said in the preface to his Observations, that 
u the universal hatred of which the General and Admiral 
complain, is more likely to have been caused from the folly 
of sending out a Protestant Missionary than by any other 
circumstance?" (preface, p. lxx). This vile absurdity was 
at first safely left to itself in the absence of public and 
official documents respecting the circumstances in South 
America; but some of our readers will have observed, in 
reading the Report of General Whitelocke's trial, that 
General Craufurd and Colonel Pack asserted the extreme 
irritation of the natives to have arisen from reported 
cruelties committed by the British. 

It were easy, but very useless, to employ many pages 
more in exposing the folly and depravity exhibited in this 
pamphlet. We will dismiss it by applauding the honesty of 
one particular part, which would reveal the main principle 
of all that this man has written on the present question, if 



144 stockdale's lectubes 

that principle had not already been sufficiently apparent : 
he praises and recommends, without any hint whatever of 
exception, the pamphlet called "A Vindication of the 
Hindoos," which pamphlet is no less than a downright and 
most vulgar and impudent defence of the collective abomi- 
nations of the heathenism of Hindostan. "We are glad to 
see these men reciprocally adopting one another as 
congenial friends in the same cause. Mr. Twining, in his 
second edition, referred with approbation to Major Scott 
Waring. Major Scott "Waring referred with complacency 
and approbation to Mr. Twining and his production ; the 
Vindicator of the Hindoos cited the Major as his ally, and 
now the league is completed by the Major's applauding 
reference to the Vindicator. As if desperate both of his 
cause and his character, he has even claimed the 
"Barrister" as an associate. 



POETICAL CEITICISM. 

Lectures on the Truly Eminent English Poets. By Percival 
Stockdale. 2 vols. 8vo. 1807. 



An apprehension of not receiving quite so much instruction 
as a very large work ought to. convey, was excited in our 
minds, we will acknowledge, by the title of these volumes. 
We could not see the promise of intellectual precision, in 
the attempt to qualify the epithet, specifying the class of 
poets, with an adverb which confuses the meaning ; still less 
when this adverb is put as the prominent and distinctive 
term of the designation. The reader knows that each of the 
English poets is either eminent or not so, and asks what 
inconceivable class of eminent poets it can be, from which 
the truly eminent are to be distinguished. The preface 
indeed explains, that this word was inserted, because Dr. 
Johnson has introduced among the eminent poets some 
names which had no just claim to be there. But besides that 
the title of any large work, professing to be of an important 



CRITICISM OST THE ENGLISH POETS. 145 

and permanent quality, should have in itself a perfect 
meaning exclusive of any tacit reference to other books, it 
seems obvious to remark, that Dr. Johnson's placing the 
lives of several very inferior poets among those of the emi- 
nent ones, has in no degree rendered those inferior poets 
eminent ; and therefore there needs no double array of dis- 
tinctive words to inclose the elevated ground occupied by 
the great poets, and guard it from unhallowed intrusion. 

It is one of the chief objects of this work, to follow the 
track of Johnson through the writings, and through parts 
of the history, of several of our great poets, in order to 
rectify some of the wrongs which we all acknowledge to have 
been done by our celebrated biographer. This was surely a 
meritorious design ; for there are parts of the Lives of the 
Poets which every lover of literary or moral justice would 
be glad to see stamped with an indelible brand of reproba- 
tion, with a disgrace so signal and conspicuous, as to be a 
perpetual warning against the perversion of criticism and 
private history by political and religious bigotry and per- 
sonal spleen. He would wish the work of the formidable 
critic to bear, like the wolf of Eomulus in the capitol, some 
lasting marks of the effect of lightning. But the difficulty 
of inflicting such effectual retribution on Johnson as to 
rescue the victims of his injustice, is too forcibly proved to 
us, even by our own feelings. There has been a great deal 
of sensible and incontrovertible writing in defence of Milton 
and Gray, and our judgments are perfectly convinced that 
the one was a much more amiable man, and the other a 
much greater poet, than Johnson has represented ; yet, in 
spite of this conviction, it is always Johnson's moral picture 
of Milton, and Johnson's estimate of the poetry of Gray, 
that are the first to recur to our minds when the names are 
introduced. The energy of the writing has reduced us to a 
certain degree of the same kind of subjection as that which 
Milton himself has imposed on our imagination with regard 
to Satan and our first parents, of whom we may strive in 
vain to form ideas materially different from those which have 
been fixed in our minds from reading "Paradise Lost." 
And, therefore, while we have often wished to see the great 
literary tyrant deposed, we are afraid that something more 
is requisite for the achievement than merely to convince the 

L 



146 stockdale's lectures. 

people of his injustice ; it is necessary to display something 
like a rival vigour of talent, an eloquence adapted to com- 
mand by its energy, separately from the justice of its object, 
a power which shall appear formed on purpose to crush or to 
baffle giants and monsters. There was no chance for inva- 
ding the den of Cacus till Hercules arrived, nor for the 
deliverance of the Greeks from that of the Cyclops, but 
through the agency of Ulysses. 

There could not be a more zealous vindicator of injured 
poets against the iniquity of criticism than the present 
writer. He will obtain full credit for courage and sincere 
enthusiasm in the cause, for more than ordinary resources 
of some kind, displayed in extending the warfare over so vast 
a field of paper, and perhaps for a generous and liberal 
motive to the hostility. Nevertheless, we think it will end, 
as the other quarrels of Europe were till lately accustomed 
to end, in the status quo ante helium. Each of the poets will 
hold exactly the same place in the public and in each.reader's 
estimation as before. Indeed, our author's opinions of them 
do not materially differ from those which are generally 
entertained already, excepting his strange idolatry of 
Chatterton. It was perfectly well understood before that 
Spenser had wrought a rich imagination into perplexing 
labyrinths of allegory ; that Milton advanced into regions of 
which every other poet had stopped and trembled at the 
dark confines, and of which the inhabitants might almost 
have mistaken him, as to his intellectual grandeur, for one 
of themselves ; that Shakspere could make all sorts of 
human creatures with far less trouble than by the method 
ascribed to Deucalion and Pyrrha, of tossing pebbles over 
their heads ; that Dryden performed wonders of diversified 
excellence both in poetry and prose, under what are called 
the frowns of fortune ; that the works of Pope are the per- 
fection of beauty in literature ; and so of the rest. It was 
not necessary for this to be repeated at such length, unless 
for the sake of some bright and original illustration, or with 
the development of some new characteristic in the genius 
and works of each of our well-known poets. But no man 
who has read and admired them, will read them the next 
time witli any new perceptions derived from the work before 
us ; nor will the gall which Johnson may have sprinkled on 






CEITICISM ON THE ENGLISH POETS. 147 

their writings, or on the features of their character, be at 
all removed by this long process of critical lustration. 

From the beginning of this work to the end, there is a 
total renunciation of all method and regularity ; it exceeds 
all former examples of literary rambling. The author seems 
to go through his subject by a succession of purely casual 
motions, just as we used, when we were boys, to go through 
a wood picking nuts, where our turning to the right, or the 
left, or going forward or backward, was determined, at each 
step, by what happened to pop on our sight at the moment. 
He will go on perhaps one or two pages with tolerable pro- 
priety after some particular topic ; this topic vanishes in 
turning the corner of some unlucky sentence ; another starts 
up, and is eagerly pursued about the same length, when this 
also slides out of sight, and leaves the pursuer to chase any 
thing that happens to present itself next. He will begin 
perhaps with a naming eulogium of a favourite poet ; at the 
tenth or twelfth sentence, the name of Johnson may chance 
to come across him ; this is sure to send him off in a violent 
invective against the bigotry, the spleen, the prejudice, the 
want of taste, and the illiberality of the great critic ; quickly 
the impulse takes a turn, and shoots him away from Johnson 
to strike impetuously against the stupidity of the age, and 
perhaps the flimsy works of its poets ; through these he 
dashes in a moment, and is gone, almost before we can cry 
out for mercy for them, to attack booksellers, antiquarians, 
metaphysicians, priests, courts, tasteless ministers of state, 
and proud mean-spirited patrons ; it is never long, however, 
before he reverts to himself, with new avowals of indepen- 
dence of judgment, of ardour for truth, and worship of 
genius, and with very equivocal expressions of an humble 
estimate of his powers to do justice to his undertaking. 
For fifty pages together there shall be no sign of progress, 
but the advancing figures at the top. We are kept in a 
most violent motion but cannot get on. An active boister- 
ous kind of diction whirls the very same sentiments, praises, 
and invectives, in an everlasting eddy. Each eminent poet 
in the train is overwhelmed with a profuse repetition of the 
same epithets of magnificence, which are rather flung at him 
than applied to him. The gentle bards are actually pelted 
with praise ; the favours of their eulogist are sent from a 

i2 



148 stockdale's lectuees. 

cross-bow, and impinge on the revered personages with such 
a vengeance as to cause an echo through the whole temple 
of the muses. The impassioned violence of the author's 
manner, and his incomparably strange phraseology, prevent 
the continual recurrence of the same forms of undiscrimi- 
nating applause and condemnation from acquiring exactly 
the appearance of common-place. It is perceived indeed to 
be his common-place; but it is so different from that of 
other writers, that it maintains a cast of novelty for a con- 
siderable time, and leads us farther than we should have 
been induced to go, if the same endless repetition of senti- 
ments so defective in intellectual force had invited us in 
ordinary language. 

A certain expression of ingenuousness and sensibility in 
the author's character, makes us resist, as long as we can, 
the conviction that this turbulence of the language does not 
arise from a vigorous intellectual operation, agitating the 
composition by a rapid succession of new. forms of energetic 
thought, but from an impetuosity of temperament, rendered 
still more vehement by a continual recurrence of the mind, 
in its desultory course, to the same ideas. "When this con- 
viction can no longer be escaped, we do wonder to observe 
with how small a portion of effectual thinking it is possible 
to write many hundred pages. 

A constant extravagance of expression is the most ob- 
vious feature of the performance. The author never thinks 
of using the sober established diction of simple criticism ; 
his feelings are always in an ebullition, and running over 
with a fire and steam that drive off all other critics and 
admirers of poetry, who are virtually reproached with being 
as cold as arctic fishes. For epithets and enthusiasm, Lon- 
ginus was a Scotch metaphysician in comparison. He has 
just the language of a person who has seen something mar- 
vellous for the first time, and is telling it to persons who 
have never seen it at all ; the language in which the first 
adventurers to India might be supposed to tell, at their 
return, of elephants, and palaces, and Moguls, and temples, 
and idols of massy gold, and to tell it all over again with an 
impossibility of making themselves tired. The word 
"glorious "is applied to the poets and their verses, in a 
manner, and with a frequency, which would have irritat 



, 



CRITICISM ON THE ENGLISH POETS. 149 

every man of those poets, if they could have heard this critic, 
into a resolution never to employ that word again. " Illus- 
trious," and "immortal," would have been in danger of the 
same exclusion. The application to writers and their works, 
of terms appropriate to celestial subjects and beings, involves 
a profaneness, in which we wonder what literary advantage 
an author can see to reconcile him to the guilt. Shakspere 
is here " divine," Milton is " divine," Dry den is " divine," 
Pope is "divine," Chatterton is "divine," and probably 
several others of the poets ; and how much more does any 
body know about them from such a description ? What is 
the use of being told of a " divine genius," a " divine soul," 
a " divine poem," or of writing or of reading that Dryden 
beheld in Shakspere, " his divine master ?"* What is to be 
learned from this extravagance, except that the author has 
never accustomed himself to a discriminative estimate of the 
works that he admires, and that he has found out there is 
room enough in terms of vastness to hide the want of terms 
of precision ? 

We shall not be required to give any regular account of 
the successive lectures, or of any one of them. The number 
is twenty, and the poets forming their subjects are Spenser, 
Shakspere, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Young, Thomson, Chat- 
terton, and Gray. We were more pleased with the vindica- 
tion of Milton against the illiberality of Johnson, than any 
other part. And the supremacy of Milton's genius and 
performance gives a better grace to the lecturer's extra- 
vagant language, than it could receive from any other of his 
subjects. We will extract some paragraphs in his best 
manner. 

" I have been defending the out works of our poetical hero ; 
let me take a view of his large and lofty citadel. Milton's poem 
is founded on our religion. Here the poet made a most judicious 
choice because by that choice, the sentiments of our best belief, 
and of our profoundest veneration, co-operated with genius, to 
give a kind of reality even to the vast objects of his peculiarly 
amplifying and creative powers. The choice was happy for 
another reason. Conscious that those powers were of a magni- 
tude almost more than human, he was determined that they 

* Rousseau also is "divine" and "glorious." We are even 
told of " the glorious Fielding." 



150 stockdajle's lectuees. 

should produce images worthy of their immensity. He knew 
that too excessive a greatness in mind, in character, and in form, 
could hardly be attributed to the persons and regions which 
lay before him. He knew it ; and he took a flight without 
limits : he saw, and he presented to our sight, the most contrasted 
and astonishing objects ; perfect beauty, and perfect deformity ; 
beings of infinite dread, and of infinite majesty. His theatre is 
unbounded space ; its scenes, its machinery, and its heroes, 
exist and -act in unbounded duration. The descriptive powers 
of the poet, his spirit and his fire are congenial with his objects. 
Those powers either give us a calm, but heartfelt delight ; they 
captivate our fancy with their serene, but expanded charms ; or 
we are irresistibly transported with their rapidity, and their 
ardour. Without any general, or infatuated prejudice ; but 
with nature, I hope, and reason, for me.* Milton might dispense 
with those rules of accuracy which, perhaps, could not, with 
propriety, be altogether neglected by any other poet ; though by 
a generous poet, they will never be minutely observed : and I 
wish that I had ability and importance enough to enfeeble the 
reign of their coercion. In his serene and beautiful, and in his 
tumultuous and tremendous scenery, he arrests our eager at- 
tention ; he wins all the interest of our heart ; he converts 
fiction into reality ; he seizes, and holds fasts, by his potent, 
magical spell, every faculty of the soul ; — by the thunder, and 
lightning of his muse, or by the persuasion, and pathos of her 
eloquence. Who can object, and censure, because, in the fourth 
book of Paradise Lost, Satan, a spirit, invisible by nature, ex- 
poses himself, in a visible form, to the resentment of his adver- 
saries ; when, at the side of Eve, in the same book, he starts up, 
from the toad, in his own shape, at the touch of the spear of 
Ithuriel % Who, that is endowed with the power of reciprocating 
fancy, can thus object, and censure ; can admit comparative 
trifles into his mind, while, in reading that exquisite book to 
which I refer, he is embosomed in the bloom and bliss of Para- 
dise ; while he imbibes the harmonious, the celestial strains of 
our seraphic poet 1 Who, that hath learned the best of learning ; 
to refine learning by sentiment ; what active, and expanded 
breast, born with a passion for the great, and the unbounded, 
can harbour the frosty logic of criticism ; can attend to the cold 
severity of reason ; when they would restrain the poetry, the 
inspiration of Milton 1 While such a reader, in the sixth book — 
a book of a more arduous and astonishing structure, is agitated 
with as excessive rapture as poetry can give, and as human 
nature can bear ; — will he not treat ' as a caviller and a trifler ; 

* We congratulate the reader who can understand this sen- 
tence. 



OEITICISM ON THE ENGLISH POETS. 151 

will he not treat with a noble contempt or indignation, the 
critic who shall remind him, that ethereal substances are neces- 
sarily invulnerable ; that it was, therefore, their own fault, if 
they were crushed with their armour ? Will not Johnson ; will 
not even Addison shrink in his eye ; while, in dread conflict, 
Michael and Satan are engaged ; the cherubim and seraphim 
standing aloof, in anxious expectation ; while the heavenly 
angels are appalled, when the cannon of Pandsemonium begins 
to play ; while those recollected angels tear up the mountains, 
and launch them at the foe ; — while all creation shakes at the 
tempest of this war ; all but the throne of God !" — Pp. 136, 139. 

" By being intimately conversant with Milton, our mental 
powers and affections are purified and exalted to their highest 
degree of sentiment, by another cause, by nature ; I mean, by 
their communication and contact with a great mind. Milton's 
genius, as I have already observed, naturally pursued images for 
which it was formed ; it ranged amidst the vast and unbounded"; 
every thing, with him, is upon a great scale. Hence, if we are 
not absolutely in the dregs of mortality, the productions of his 
genius dilate and sublimate our souls with collateral ideas. 
Certainly we must leave all earthly dross behind us, when we 
mount, with Milton, to the gold that bespangles the firmament. 
When we survey the august and stupendous forms of his heroes 
and demigods ; when we listen to their new, but striking, and 
inspiring eloquence ; to an eloquence characteristic of then- 
forms ; we feel an ambition for true greatness, for the noblest 
pursuits and passions. When we travel, with him, through im- 
measurable space ; through Earth, Erebus, Chaos, and Olympus ; 
we look back on our own sublunary state with indifference ; on 
human beings, with a mild superiority of sentiment. Our 
morality and religion expand with our excursions ; we deem 
nothing so diminutive as human pride j indeed, this " great globe 
itself, and all who it inhabit," seems but specks on the whole 
creation. If such effects are produced by a great poet, in the 
mind of the reader, I will not, with other critics, elaborately 
endeavour to find a moral in Milton." — pp. 157, 158. 

" What an extraordinary being was this man, whether we view 
him in his moral, religious, or poetical character ! It is almost 
impossible for ah unprejudiced, good, and susceptible mind, 
which is powerfully actuated with the love of poetry and virtue; 
it is almost impossible for such a mind to recollect the full 
memory of Milton, without paying to that memory an euthusi- 
astic homage ; a kind of inferior adoration. I should suppose 
that no sensible, and feeling mind could read the following little 
plain account of him which is transmitted to us, from Dr. Wright, 
an old clergyman of Dorsetshire, without strong emotions. The 



152 stockdale's lectures. 

Doctor tells us that ' Milton lived in a small house ; with but 
one room, as he thought, on a floor ; where he found him up one 
pair of stairs ; in a chamber hung with rusty green ; sitting in 
an elbow chair ; black clothes, but neat enough ; pale, but not 
cadaverous ; his hands, and fingers, gouty, and with chalkstones; 
and that among other discourse, he expressed himself to this 
purpose ; that were he free from the pain which the gout gave 
him, his blindness would be tolerable.' See Biog. Brit, page 
3116 : note at JSS. Compared with this poor small house ; and 
with its faded hangings of rusty green, how does the splendour 
of what Versailles was ; how does the pomp of the Escurial 
shrink ; and how are they obscured, to a vigorous and well- 
regulated understanding ; and to an active and generous fancy ! 
thus compared, to what an insignificance does a Charles the 
Fifth ; to what an insignificance does a Louis the Fourteenth 
sink before the august inhabitant of that humble tenement ! 
before our moral, and poetical hero !" — Pp. 222, 223, 

In the course of the work, there are many brief and often 
unsatisfactory discussions of literary questions. A flighty 
enthusiasm is ill adapted to speculation ; for this will often, 
in the critical department, require some aid from metaphy- 
sics, the introduction of which, in any considerable degree, 
our authors deprecates, with an emphatic condemnation of 
Lord Karnes and his Elements of Criticism. Tt may be true 
enough, that Lord Karnes had not himself a very delicate 
taste, and that he and other Northern philosophers some- 
times extinguish all the charm of literary beauty by an 
extreme frigidness in their process of inquiring why it 
pleases, and that, in pursuing, this inquiry to the utmost 
reach of subtilty, they entertain too much contempt for 
those more obvious laws of feeling, by which any reflective 
man may ascertain the immediate cause of his pleasure in 
reading any work of eloquence or true poetry. But we may 
be permitted to observe, that if, as our author maintains, 
criticism should confine itself, and if all liberal criticism 
must confine itself, to explain only the more obvious causes 
of the pleasure, and the more obvious rules according to 
which literary performances must be executed in order to 
impart such pleasure, it would seem almost superfluous to 
comment at all on works of taste, since, thus far, no reader 
of sense will need the critic's assistance, or thank him for 
obtruding it. We can feel but very slight obligation to a 






CEITICISM ON THE ENGLISH POETS. 153 

critic, who is to do little more than tell us that this passage 
is beautiful, and the other sublime ; we were perfectly sen- 
sible of this '^beauty and sublimity before, and of an obvious 
and superficial cause of its pleasing us. It is a deeper ex- 
planation that we have to ask of the critic ; we would wish 
to ask him, in the general, what is that relation between the 
constitution of our nature and the qualities of sublimity and 
beauty which empowers those qualities to affect us so much, 
and, in particular, which of the laws or principles of that 
relation is concerned in the emotion we feel in any given 
instance of the effect of fine writing. If he is not prepared 
to do this, or at least to attempt it, we cannot receive him 
with any high degree of respect ; if he only proceeds to 
declare, here and there, his feelings of admiration, we shall 
be disposed to tell him that we also can feel, but that neither 
his feelings nor ours will be admitted by a third party, as 
the standard of truth in criticism ; and we shall endeavour 
to persuade him, as we ourselves are persuaded, that we may 
all gain a good deal of advantage by passing some time in 
the company of the Caledonian philosophers, who will en- 
deavour to explain to us why we feel, and to ascertain some 
rules, independent of caprice, for distinguishing when we 
feel right. And our author may be assured, that no man 
ever had more occasion for a little of this philosophic lore, 
than he has himself, according to the testimony of this very 
performance. 

In the lectures on Dryden, nothing struck us more than 
the lax morality of our author, who is, notwithstanding, a 
zealous declaimer for virtue throughout the book ; but he is 
so infatuated with admiration of genius, that he seems to 
think it can do no wrong, as having something very like a 
privilege to frame a system of morality of its own, in con- 
tempt of that which has been instituted by the Creator of 
the world. Dryden very powerfully assisted to aggravate 
the depravity of the age in which he lived ; and yet, from a 
consideration of his talents, his ardent poetical feelings, his 
poverty, the vices of his age, and the persecution of church- 
men, who with unparalleled malignity and presumption took 
it upon them to censure the profligacy of his writings, the 
apologist contrives to make out that Dryden was a very 
proper man, and believes he was not without " the 



154 STOCKDALES' XECTUBES. 

support and approbation of conscious virtue." He closes 
the case with the following passage, which, if it had appear- 
ed in an abler work, would have deserved the last possible 
severity of condemnation. 

" Dry den's plays are licentious ; and so far they tend to be 
unfavourable to virtue. But when he wrote, they would infalli- 
bly have been damned if they had been more chastened by mo- 
rality. Congreve was never in the unhappy circumstances of 
Dryden, jet his comedies are far from being delicate. He knew 
that the manners and taste of his time, demanded some moral 
sacrifices, if he meant that his plays should be successful. How- 
ever, if stall-fed theology can convince me, that it would rather 
have starved than have written as loosely as Dryden wrote, I 
will give our poet no quarter for his dramatic immoralities." — 
Pp. 381, 382. 

As to Dryden' s poverty, and its attendant miseries, which 
have excited so much generous compassion and indignation 
in the present and many other authors, we are afraid we do 
not feel all the sympathy that we ought. We know indeed, 
very well, that nature has made it absolutely necessary to a 
great poet to consume at least a hundred times as much in 
diet and clothing as must suffice for one of us critics (and 
this, by the way, is very likely to be one main cause of the 
hostility which we are sometimes reputed to feel against the 
tuneful tribe, whose voracity threatens us with famine) — 
but still we are very apt to excuse our inseusibility with 
regard to Dryden, when we are told by Congreve that his 
hereditary income was a " competency," though he pleads it 
was " little more than a bare one," when we hear of his 
receiving for one dedication a present of £500 (a sum of 
more value than £1,500 now), and when we know that he 
had a prodigious facility of composition, and might as a 
writer, have been popular without being vicious. Even this 
apologist, however, censures him for the debasement to 
which he reduced himself in his notorious dedications. As 
to the versatility of Dryden' s genius, and the very high 
literary excellence of many parts of his writings, we should 
coincide with any language of admiration short of that ex- 
travagant one habitually employed by Mr. Stockdale. We 
will make one more display of the quality of his diction, by 



CEITICISM ON THE ENGLISH POETS. 155 

extracting, from the conclusion of the lectures on Dryden, a 
passage on the influence of poetry. 

et It gives a more hideous deformity to vice ; — more celestial 
charms to virtue ; the heaven-descended magic of poetry accom- 
panies its disciple through every transition of his life : — it 
actuates and brightens his waking hours ; it whispers peace and 
serenity to his dreams ; it habitually works his mind to a gentle 
emotion; — a pleasing agitation;— a delightful luxuriance of 
fancy. The surrounding objects take a similar relief ; and he is 
in a stronger and livelier contact with nature. — This poetical 
and mighty magic, heightens, to his view, the tints and fra- 
grance of the spring ; it gives a purer transparency to the 
waters ; a more striking scenery to the course of a majestic 
river ; it elevates the mountains ; — it aggrandizes the dread 
magnificence of Heaven ; — it inspires a demonstration of the 
existence, and providence of a God ! We see, and we feel, that he 
was the author of our solar system ; — and that ' he made the stars 
also ! ' 

" All this would seem Arabic or romance ; or even madness, 
to those whose reading goes not beyond reviews, and whose 
virtue goes not beyond discretion. But I flatter myself," &c. &c. 
Pp. 401, 402. 

Chatterton occupies nearly 400 pages, and gives a bound- 
less scope to all the lecturer's excesses, which rush forth in 
denunciations of the illiberality and ingratitude of the age 
and nation, in fierce invectives against Horace "Walpole, Mr. 
Bryant, and the good burghers of Bristol, adorations of the 
"divine genius," who is now in the "Elysian fields," in 
which, says Mr. S., ■" I have no doubt his vindicated and 
beatified soul enjoys eternal felicity," and in awful intima- 
tions that the Almighty may never again " grant an equal 
phenomenon to an ungrateful world." The whole volumi- 
nous amplification about this unfortunate young man is 
unnecessary and useless in a literary view, and parts of it are, 
in a moral one, really very disgusting. His genius is extolled 
to the last monstrosity of hyperbole ; his persevering false- 
hoods relating to the poems, and his well-known vicious 
habits, are extenuated into innocence, if not into merit, and 
even the spirit that impelled him to his wretched exit is 
partly applauded. He was a great genius, the world treated 
him unhandsomely, and therefore he was absolved from 
moral and religious obligation. It was presumption to cen- 



156 stockdale's lecttjees. 

sure him if he scoffed at Christianity, if he abandoned 
himself to dissipation, and if he destroyed himself because 
he had not the means of supporting it. "We cannot profess 
to know how far any one will think such moral absurdity 
is atoned for, by the following sort of compliments to 
Christianity : 

" A most generous and heavenly system ! which will always 
have the love, and the zeal of every sensible head ; which is 
actuated by an honest and feeling heart ; of every independent, 
and ingenuous mind ; whether he is smiled or frowned on, 
by the hierarchy : who, by their luxury, and pride, and pomp of 
life, are the representatives of any thing rather than of the 
Christian religion, So remote, indeed, is the time in which our 
Saviour lived ; so extraordinary and astonishing are his mission 
and character ; and so far from the constant course of nature 
are all the other objects which ushered and accompanied his 
revelation, that an honest and virtuous man may, to some de- 
gree, be a sceptic ; but he will be a sceptic with that modesty and 
moderation which the subject of his scepticism deserves : while 
he doubts, he will revere ; while he fears that a system which 
provides more effectually than all others, foi the well-being, for 
the comfortable existence of mankind, may be human he will 
most ardently wish that it may be divine ! Such was the 
scepticism of the unprejudiced and illustrious Eousseau. He 
states the main topics and arguments in favour of Christianity, 
and against it, when it is considered as a divine revelation, per- 
spicuously and completely ; and he gives them all their force. 
I must honestly acknowledge, that the result of this fair and 
dispassionate reasoning is a reluctant diffidence with a pre- 
ponderance of belief. 

" Such was the scepticism of the elegant and sublime Eousseau; 
whose reasoning faculties were as acute and vigorous, as his 
imagination was warm and luxuriant. And I must think it an 
unquestionable truth, that deliberate and vindictive hostilities 
against Christianity ; the best guide of our lives ; the best 
soother of our woes ; the best friend to all true pleasure ; were 
never maintained by any man who was, at once, good and great. 
To rail at it, or to ridicule it, are infrllible proofs of a bad taste, 
and of a bad heart. To persecute this divine institution, from 
the press, with a malignity of the deepest dye ; to attack it with 
a savage ferocity ; to attempt to undermine it, with a miserable 
and illiterate sophistry ; to make it the subject of low, clownish 
gambols of the mind ; which pass with the writer, and with his 
gang, for wit ; this gothic warfare was reserved for our intellec- 






TOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 157 

tual ruffians and assassins; it was reserved for the literary 
profligacy of the present times." — Pp. 139 142. 

"We lament that a man, who has had so many years 
granted him for the investigation of the evidences of Chris- 
tianity, should be approaching near the period of his quitting 
the world, with so slender a hold on its consolations, and so 
dark an eclipse of its hopes. And how melancholy it is to 
hear him avow, that a very different kind of hope animates 
his ambition in the evening of his life. 

" To liberal, benevolent, and generous minds, whose good 
wishes I hope to deserve, I here honestly and openly declare, 
that I am not a little ambitious of a literary immortality ; and it 
would gratify me extremely to feel the rays of its orient lustre 
warm, and animate my languid frame before it descends to the 
tomb." 

On this we have only two short and simple remarks ; 
first, this immortality does not await him, and secondly, it 
would be of no use to him if it did. 



PERSONAL YIETXJE IN ITS EELATION TO 
POLITICAL EMINENCE. 

A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II. ; with 
an Introductory Chapter. By the Eight Hon. Charles James 
Fox. To which is added an Appendix. 4to. 1808. 

Mait of our celebrated countrymen will always be recol- 
lected with regret by persons who take the most serious 
view of human characters and affairs ; but there is no name 
in the English records of the past century that excites in 
us so much of this feeling as that of the author of this 
work. The regret arises from the consideration of what 
such a man might have been, and might have done. As to 
talents, perhaps no eminent man was ever the subject of so 
little controversy, or ever more completely deterred even 
the most perverse spirit of singularity from hazarding a 



158 POX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

hint of doubt or dissent by the certainty of becoming utterly 
ridiculous. To pretend to talk of any superior man was the 
same thing, except among a few of the tools or dupes of 
party, as to name generals to whom Hannibal, or Scipio, or 
Julius Caesar, ought to have been but second in command ; 
or poets from whose works the mind must descend to those 
of Shakspere and Milton. If all political partialities could 
be suspended in forming the judgment, we suppose the 
great majority of intelligent men would pronounce Pox the 
greatest orator of modern times ! and they would be careful 
to fix the value of this verdict by observing, that they used 
the term orator in the most dignified sense in which it can 
be understood. Other speakers have had more of what is 
commonly, and perhaps not improperly, called brilliance, 
more novelty and luxuriance of imagery, more sudden 
flashes, points, and surprises, and vastly more magnificence 
of language. Burke, especially, was such a speaker; and 
during his oration the man of intelligence and taste was 
delighted to enthusiasm in feeling that something so new as 
to defy all conjectural anticipation was sure to burst on him 
at every fourth or fifth sentence, and in beholding a thou- 
sand forms and phantoms of thought, as if suddenly brought 
from all parts of the creation, most luckily and elegantly 
associated with a subject to which no mortal had ever 
imagined that any one of them could have been related 
before. Yet this very auditor, if he had wished to have a 
perplexing subject luminously simplified, or a vast one con- 
tracted according to a just scale to his understanding ; if 
he had wished to put himself in distinct possession of the 
strongest arguments for maintaining the same cause in 
another place ; if he had been anxious to qualify himself for 
immediate action in an affair in which he had not yet been 
able to satisfy himself in deliberation ; or if he had been 
desirous for his coadjutors in any important concern to 
have a more perfect comprehension of its nature, and a 
more absolute conviction as to the right principles and 
measures to be adopted respecting it, than all his efforts 
could give them, he would have wished, beyond all others, to 
draw Eox's mind to bear on the subject. For ourselves, we 
think we never heard any man who dismissed us from the 
argument on a debated topic with such a feeling of satisfied 



CHARACTER OF FOX'S ELOQUENCE. 159 

and final conviction, or such a competence to tell why we 
were convinced. There was, in the view in which subjects 
were placed by him, something like the daylight, that simple 
clearness which makes things conspicuous and does not 
make them glare, which adds no colour or form, but purely 
makes visible in perfection the real colour and form of all thiugs 
round ; a kind of light less amusing than that of magnificent 
lustres or a thousand coloured lamps, and less fascinating 
and romantic than that of the moon, but which is immeasu- 
rably preferred when we are bent on sober business, and not 
at leisure, or not in the disposition to wander delighted 
among beautiful shadows and delusions. It is needless to 
say that Fox possessed in a high degree wit and fancy ; but 
superlative intellect was the grand distinction of his 
eloquence; the pure force of sense, of plain, downright 
sense was so great, that it would have given a character 01 
sublimity to his eloquence, even if it had never once been 
aided by a happy image or a brilliant explosion. The 
grandeur of plain sense would not have been deemed an 
absurd phrase, by any man who had heard one of Fox's best 
speeches. 

And as to the moral features of the character, all who 
knew him concur in ascribing to him a candour, a good- 
nature, simplicity of manners, and an energy of feeling, 
which made him no less interesting as a friend, and might 
have made him no less noble as a philanthropist than he was 
admirable as a senator. 

We have very often surrendered our imagination to the 
interesting, but useless and painful employment, of tracing- 
out the career which might have been run by a man thus 
pre-eminently endowed. We have imagined him first rising 
up through a youth of unrivalled promise to the period of 
maturity unstained by libertinism, scorning to think for one 
moment of a competition with the heroes of Bond Street, or 
any other class of the minions of fashion, and maintaining 
the highest moral principles in contempt of the profligacy 
which pressed close around him. It is an unfortunate state 
of mind in any reader of these pages, whose risibility is 
excited, when we add to the sketch that solemn reverence 
for the Deity, and expectation of a future judgment, without 
which it is a pure matter of fact that there is no such thing 



160 FOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

on earth as an invincible and universal virtue. Instead of un- 
bounded licentiousness, our imaginary young statesman has 
shown his contempt of parsimony by the most generous modes 
of expense which humanity could suggest, and his regard 
for the softer sex, by appropriating one of the best and most 
interesting of them in the fidelity of the tenderest relation. 
"We have imagined him employing the time which other young 
men of rank and spirit gave to dissipation, in a strenuous 
prosecution of moral and political studies ; and yet mingling 
so far with men of various classes, as to know intimately of 
what materials society and governments are composed. "We 
have imagined him as presenting himself at length on the 
public scene, with an air and a step analogous and rival to 
the aspect and sinew of the most powerful combatant that 
ever entered the field of Olympia. 

At this entrance on public action, we have viewed him 
solemnly determining to make absolute principle the sole 
rule of his conduct in every instance, to the last sentence 
he should speak or write on public affairs ; to give no 
pledges, and make no concessions, to any party whatever ; 
to expose and prosecute, with the same unrelenting justice, 
the generally equal corruption of ministries and oppositions; 
to cooperate with any party in the particular case in which 
he should judge it in the right, and in all other cases to 
protest impartially against them all ; and to say the whole 
truth, when other pretended friends of public virtue and 
the people durst only to say the half, for fear of provoking 
an examination of their own conduct, or for fear of abso- 
lutely shutting the door against all chance of future ad- 
vancement. "We view him holding up to contempt the 
artifices and intrigues of statesmen, and hated abundantly 
for his pains, no doubt, but never in danger of a retaliation 
of exposure. He would not have submitted to be found in 
the society of even the very highest persons in the state, 
on any other terms of intercourse than those of virtue and 
wisdom ; he would have felt it a duty peculiarly sacred and 
cogent to make his most animated efforts to counteract any 
corruption which he might perceive finding its way into 
such society, and if those efforts failed, to withdraw himself 
so entirely as to be clear of all shadow of responsibility. 
Virtue of this quality would be in little hazard of afflicting 



WHAT FOX MIGHT HATE BEEF. 161 

any government with a violent impatience to have the man 
for a coadjutor, and therefore our imagination never placed 
him oftener or longer in any of the high offices of state, 
than about such a space as Eox was actually so privileged ; 
indeed a considerably shorter time, for even had it been 
possible that any set of men would have acceded at first to 
such conditions of coalition as he would have insisted on, 
there could hardly have failed to arise, in the course of a 
month or two, some question on which this high and inflex- 
ible virtue must have dissented so totally, and opposed so 
strenuously, as to have necessitated, on the one part or the 
other, a relinquishment of office ; and it could not be 
doubtful one instant on which part this surrender must 
take place, when the alternative lay between a man of pure 
virtue and the ordinary tribe of statesmen. But office 
would not have been requisite to the influence of such a 
heroic and eloquent patriot. Our imagination has repre- 
sented him as not only maintaining, in the public council of 
the nation, the cause of justice in all its parts, sometimes 
with the support of other men of talents, and sometimes 
without it, but also as feeling that his public duty extended 
much beyond all the efforts he could make in that place. 
As it is absurd to expect integrity in a government, while 
the people are too ignorant or too inattentive to form any 
right judgment of its proceedings, and as no person in the 
whole country would have been so qualified to present 
before it simple and comprehensive illustrations of its situ- 
ation and interests, or would indeed have been a tenth part 
so much attended to, we have imagined him publishing 
from time to time instructions to the people, in the form of 
large tracts, stating, with all his unequalled clearness and 
comprehension, the duties of the people with respect to the 
conduct of government, and the nature and tendency of the 
important questions and measures of the times, with an 
anxious and reiterated effort to impart just views on the 
general topics of political science, such as the rights of the 
people, the foundation of the authority of governments, the 
principles of taxation, and peace and war. If these great 
duties allowed any time for the more formal schemes of 
literary performance, he might have taken up some period 
of the English or any other history, which afforded the best 

M 



162 FOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

occasions for illustrating the most interesting points of 
political truth, and forming a set of permanent national 
lessons. But we could almost have regretted to see him so 
engaged, since very often the ascertaining of some very 
inconsiderable fact, or the unravelling of some perplexity, 
which, though of consequence possibly to the completeness 
of the history, is not of the smallest importance to its use, 
must have consumed the labour and time which might have 
produced a powerful illustration of some subject im- 
mediately momentous to the public welfare, and prevented 
more mischief than all histories of England ever did 
good. 

During this whole career, the favourite of our imagination 
keeps far aloof from all personal turpitude ; and Howard 
was just as capable of insulting misery, or John de Witt of 
carrying on a paltry intrigue, or Eustace St. Pierre of 
betraying his fellow -citizens, as our statesman of mingling 
with the basest refuse of human nature at Newmarket and 
the gambling house, not to mention houses of any other 
description. "We should have suspected ourselves of some 
feverish dream or transient delirium, if our fancy had ever 
dared so monstrous a representation, as that of the elo- 
quence which could fascinate and enlighten every tender 
and every intelligent friend, and influence senates whose 
decrees would influence the destinies of the world, expend- 
ing itself in discussions with jockeys, and debates with 
black-legs ; of the intellect which could hold the balance of 
national contests, or devise schemes for the benefit of all 
mankind, racked with calculations on dice and cards ; of the 
vehement accuser of public' prodigality transferring thou- 
sands upon thousands, at the cast of these dice and cards, 
to wretches wbo deserve to be cauterized out of the body 
politic, without making, at the same time, any very careful 
inquiry, whether the claims of all his industrious trades- 
men had been satisfied. If the virtue of other statesmen 
and patriots was found melting away in the arms of 
wantons, or suffocated with the fumes of wine, or reduced 
to that last consummation of dishonour, a subscription of 
friends to repair a fortune dissipated in the most ignoble 
uses, our patriot would have been incensed that such men 
should presume to make speeches against corruption, and 
profane the name of public virtue. 



WHAT FOX MIGHT HAVE BEEN - . 163 

If, in pursuing his career to a conclusion, we placed him 
in office towards the close of his life, we beheld him most 
earnest, we will say devoutly earnest, to render the last 
part of his course more useful than all that had preceded, 
by a bold application of those principles which he had 
maintained through life, to the purposes in which alone 
they can be of any use, the practical schemes of reform ; 
and if he found it impossible to effect or even to propose, 
those reforms he had so many thousand times averred to be 
essential to the safety of the state, indignantly abandoning, 
before death summoned him, all concern in political office, 
with an honest, and public, and very loud declaration of its 
incurable corruption. In virtue of the privilege belonging 
to all creators of fictitious personages, we should certainly 
have invoked death to a premature removal of our favourite, 
if we could have fancied the remotest possibility that he 
might, in the last, and what ought to be the most illustrious 
period of his life, sink into the silent witness of aggravated 
and rapidly progressive corruptions, the approver of oppres- 
sive taxes on people of slender means, and the eloquent 
defender of sinecures held by lords. But we could not 
suffer the thought, that the personage whose course we had 
followed throiigh every triumph of virtue, could at last, for 
the sake of a few sickly months of office, deny his degraded 
country the consolation of being able to cite, after he was 
gone, the name of one consistent and unconquerable patriot 
at least, in contrast to the legion of domestic spoilers and 
betrayers ; or refuse himself the laurels which were ready to 
be conferred on him by the hand of death : no, we beheld 
him retaining to the last stage, the same decisive rectitude 
which ennobled all the preceding ; and after humbly com- 
mitting himself to the Divine mercy, in the prospect of 
soon removing to a state for which no tumults of public life 
had ever been suffered to interrupt his anxious preparation, 
realizing what the poet predicted of a former statesman, 

" ' Oh, save my country, Heaven ! ' shall be thy last." 

How pensive has been the sentiment with which we have 
said, all this is no more than ivhat Fox might have been : 
nor has this feeling been in the least beguiled by the splen- 
dour of all the eulogiums, by the fragrance of all the incense, 

m 2 



164 FOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

conferred and offered since his death. His name stands 
conspicuous on the list of those, who have failed to accom- 
plish the commission on which their wonderful endowments 
would seem to tell that they had been sent to the world, by 
the Master of human and all other spirits. It is thus that 
mankind are doomed to see a succession of individuals rising 
among them, with capacities for rendering them the most 
inestimable services, but faithless, for the most part, to their 
high vocation, and either never attempting the generous 
labours which invite their talents, or combining with these 
labours the vices which frustrate their efficacy. Our late 
distinguished statesman's exertions for the public welfare 
were really so great, and in many instances, we have no 
doubt, so well intended, that it is peculiarly painful to be- 
hold him defrauding such admirable powers and efforts of 
their effect, by means of those parts of his conduct in which 
he sunk to a level with the least respectable of mankind ; 
and we think no man within our memory has given so 
melancholy an example of this self-counteraction. It is im- 
possible for the friends of our constitution and of human 
nature not to feel a warm admiration for Eox's exertions, 
whatever their partial motives and whatever their occasional 
excesses might be, in vindication of the great principles of 
liberty, in hostility to the rage for war, and in extirpation of 
the slave trade. This last abomination, which had gradually 
ost, even on the basest part of the nation, that hold which 
t had for a while maintained by a delusive notion of policy, 
and was fast sinking under the hatred of all that could pre- 
tend to humanity or decency, was destined ultimately to 
fall by his hand, at a period so nearly contemporary with 
che end of his career, as to give the remembrance of his 
death somewhat of a similar advantage of association to 
that, by which the death of the Hebrew champion is always 
recollected in connexion with the fall of Dagon's temple. A 
great object was accomplished, and it is fair to attribute the 
event, in no small degree, to his persevering support of that 
most estimable individual who was the leader of the design: 
but as to his immense display of talent on the wide ground 
of general politics, on the theory of true freedom, and 
popular rights ; on the great and increasing influence of the 
crown ; on the corruption and reform of public institutions ; 



POX'S SELr-COUNTEEACTION. 165 

on severe investigation of public expenditure; on the 
national vigilance proper to be exercised over the conduct 
of government ; and on the right of any nation to change, 
when it judges necessary, both the persons and the form of 
its government ; we have observed with the deepest mortifi- 
cation, times without number, the very slight and transient 
effect on the public mind of a more argumentative and 
luminous eloquence, than probably we are ever again to see 
irradiating those subjects, and urging their importance. 
Both principles and practices, tending toward arbitrary 
power and national degradation, were progressively gaining 
ground during the much greater part of the time that he 
was assaulting them with fire and sword ; -• and the people, 
notwithstanding it was their own cause that he was main- 
taining by this persevering warfare, though they were 
amused indeed with his exploits, could hardly be induced to 
regard him otherwise than as a capital prize-fighter, and 
scarcely thanked him for the fortitude and energy which he 
devoted to their service. He was allowed to be a most ad- 
mirable man for a leader of opposition, but not a mortal 
could be persuaded to regard that opposition, even in his 
hands, as bearing any resemblance to that which we have 
been accustomed to ascribe to Cato, an opposition of which 
pure virtue was the motive, and all corruptions whatever 
the object. If the very same things which were said by 
Pox, had been advanced by the person whose imaginary 
character w*e have sketched in the preceding pages, they 
would have become the oracles of the people from Berwick 
to Land's End ; corrupters and intriguers would have felt 
an impression of awe when he rose to speak ; no political 
doctors or nostrums could have cured their nerves of a 
strange vibration at the sound of his words— a vibration very 
apt to reach into their consciences or their fears; there 
would have been something mysterious and appalling in his 
voice, a sound as if a multitude of voices articulated in one ; 
and though his countenance should have looked as candid 
and friendly as Eox's did, these gentlemen would have been 
sometimes subject to certain fretful, peevish lapses of imagi- 
nation much like those in which Macbeth saw the apparition 
of Banquo, and would have involuntarily apostrophized him 
as the dreaded agent of detection and retribution. They 



166 



EOX S JAMES THE SECOF.D. 



would have felt themselves in the presence of their master, 
for they would have been taught to recognize, in this one 
man, the most real representative of the people, whose will 
would generally be soon declared as substantially identical 
with his opinions. 

How then did it come to pass, that Fox had no such 
influence on the national mind, or on the government? The 
answer is perfectly obvious, and it forms a very serious 
admonition to all patriots who really wish to promote the 
welfare of the people, by an opposition to corruptions of the 
state. The talents, and the long and animated exertions, of 
the most eloquent of all our countrymen failed, plainly be- 
cause the people placed no confidence in his virtue, or in 
other words because they would never be persuaded to 
attribute virtue to his character. 

A signal notoriety of dissipation accompanied the outset 
of his public career. "While the political party which he 
opposed might be very reasonably astonished that the en- 
gagements of the turf, of the bagnio, and of the sanctuaries 
dedicated to the enshrined and associated imps of chance 
and fraud, should seem to divert no part of the energy with 
which they were attacked in their quarters at St. Stephen's, 
and while the tribes of bloods, bucks, rakes, and other 
worthy denominations and fraternities might be proud to 
have for their leader a genius, who could at the same time 
beat so many grey-beards of the state on their own ground, 
the sober part of the nation deplored or despised, according 
to the more generous or more cynical character of the indi- 
viduals, the splendid talent which could degrade itself to so 
much folly and immorality. Too great a share of the same 
fatal reputation attended the distinguished statesman, with 
whatever truth, during the much greater part of his life. 
We say, with whatever truth ; for we know no more of his 
private history than what has been without contradiction 
circulated in the talk and the printed chronicles of scandal ; 
with exaggerations and fictions, no doubt ; but no public 
man can have such a reputation without having substantially 
such a character. And by a law, as deep in human nature 
as any of its principles of distinction between good and evil, 
it is impossible to give respect or confidence to a man who 
habitually disregards some of the primary ordinances of 



fox's moeal eeputation. 167 

morality. The nation never confided in our eloquent states- 
man's integrity; those who admired every thing in his 
talents, and much in his qualities, regretted that his name 
never ceased to excite in their minds the idea of gamesters 
and bacchanals, even after he was acknowledged to have 
withdrawn himself from such society. Those who held his 
opinions, were almost sorry that he should have held them, 
while they saw with what malicious exultation they who 
rejected them could cite his moral reputation, in place of 
argument, to invalidate them. In describing this unfortu- 
nate effect of the character, we are simply asserting known 
matter of fact. There is not one advocate of the principles 
or of the man, who has not to confess what irksome and 
silencing rebuffs he has experienced in the form of reference 
to moral character; we have observed it continually for 
many years, in every part of England which we have fre- 
quented; and we have seen practical and most palpable 
proof, that no man, even of the highest talents, can ever 
acquire, or at least retain, much influence on the public 
mind in the character of remonstrant and reformer, without 
the reality, or at any rate the invulnerable reputation, of 
virtue, in the comprehensive sense of the word, as com- 
prising every kind of morality prescribed by the highest 
moral code acknowledged in a Christian nation. Public 
men and oppositionists may inveigh against abuses, and 
parade in patriotism, as long as they please ; they will find 
that even one manifest vice will preclude all public confi- 
dence in their principles, and therefore render futile the 
strongest exertions of talent ; a slight flaw in otherwise the 
best tempered blade of Toledo, will soon expose the baffled 
wight that wields it to either the scorn or pity of the spec- 
tators, and to the victorious arm of his antagonist. It has 
possibly been said, that a man may maintain nice principles 
of integrity in the prosecution of public affairs, though his 
conscience and practice are very defective in matters of 
private morality. But this would never be believed, even if 
it were true : the universal conviction of mankind rejects it 
when it is attempted, in practical cases, to be made the 
foundation of confidence. So far is this from being believed, 
that even a conspicuous and complete reformation of private 
morals if it be but recent, is still an unsatisfactory security 



168 FOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

for public virtue ; and a very long probation of personal 
character is indispensable, as a kind of quarantine for a man 
once deeply contaminated to undergo, in order to engage 
any real confidence in the integrity of his public conduct ; 
nor can he ever engage it in the same degree, as if a uni- 
form and resolute virtue had marked his private conduct 
from the beginning. But even if it were admitted, that all 
the virtues of the statesman might nourish in spite of the 
vices of the man, it would have been of no use, as an argu- 
ment for confidence in the integrity of Eox's principles as a 
statesman, after the indelible stigma which they received in 
the famous coalition with Lord North. In what degree that 
portion of the people, that approved Pox's political opinions, 
really confided in his integrity as a firm and consistent 
statesman, was strongly brought to the proof, at the time of 
his appointment as one of the principals of the late admini- 
stration. His admirers in general expressed their expecta- 
tions in terms of great reserve ; they rather wished, than 
absolutely dared to believe, that it was impossible he should 
not prefer a fidelity to those great principles and plans of 
extensive reform, which he had so strenuously inculcated, 
to any office or associates in office that should require the 
sacrifice of those plans, and that he would not surely have 
taken a high official station, without some stipulations for 
carrying them, at least partially, into effect. But they 
recollected the tenor of his life \ and though they were 
somewhat disappointed, and deeply grieved, to find him at 
his very entrance on office proposing and defending one of 
the rankest abuses, and afterwards inviolably keeping the 
peace with the grand total of abuses, in both the domestic 
and the Indian government, they did, at least many of them, 
confess, that they had always trembled for the consequence 
of bringing to such an ordeal a political integrity which, 
while they had sometimes for a moment almost half-believed 
in it, they had always been obliged to refer to some far 
different principle from a firm personal morality, supported 
by a religious conscience. 

"We have remarked on the slight hold which our great 
orator had on the mind of the nation at large ; it was morti- 
fying also to observe, how little ascendancy his prodigious 
powers maintained over the minds of senators and ministers. 



ESTIMATE OF EOX's CHAEACTEE. 169 

It was irksome to witness that air of easy indifference, with 
which his most poignant reproaches were listened to ; that 
readiness of reply to his nervous representations of the 
calamities or injustice of war ; the carelessness often mani- 
fested while he was depicting the distresses of the people : 
and the impudent gaiety and sprightliness with which arrant 
corruption could show, and defend, and applaud itself in his 
presence. It is not for us to pretend to judge of what 
materials ministers and senators are composed ; but we did 
often think, that if eloquence of such intensity, and so 
directed, had been corroborated in its impetus by the autho- 
ritative force which severe virtue can give to the stroke of 
talent, some of them would have been repressed into a very 
different kind of feeling and manners from those which we 
had the mortification to behold : we did think that, a man 
thus armed at once with the spear and the aegis, might have 
caused it to be felt, by stress of dire compulsion, " How 
awful goodness is." 

On the whole, we shall always regard Fox as a memor- 
able and mournful example of a gigantic agent, at once 
determined to labour for the public, and dooming himself to 
labour almost in vain. Our estimate of his talents pre- 
cludes all hope or fear of any second example of such 
powerful labours, or such humiliating failure of effect. "We 
wish the greatest genius on earth, whoever he may be, 
might write an inscription for our eminent statesman's 
monument to express, in the most strenuous of all possible 
modes of thought and phrase, the truth and the warning, 
that no man will ever be accepted to serve mankind in the 
highest departments of utility, without an eminence of 
virtue that can sustain him in the noble defiance — Which of 
you convicts me of sin ? 

We can see that a good life of Fox will never be given to 
the public. If his biography is written by any of his inti- 
mate friends, who alone possess competent materials, they 
will suppress, and may even be excused on the ground of 
affection and propriety for suppressing, many things which 
are of the very vitality of the character. The historian of 
such a man ought to be at once knowing, philosophical, and 
impressed with the principles of religion ; and it may easily 
be guessed whether such a writer is likely to be found, or if 



170 POX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

he were found, to be put in possession of all the requisite 
information. "We must notice a sentence in Lord Holland's 
preface (p, xlv.) : — 

" It is true, that at the melancholy period of his death, advan- 
tage was taken of the interest excited by all that concerned him, 
to impose upon the public a variety of memoirs and anecdotes 
(in the form of pamphlets), as unfounded in fact, as they were 
painful to his friends and injurious to his memory. The confi- 
dent pretensions with which many of those publications were 
ushered into the world, may have given them some little circu- 
lation at the time, but the internal evidence of their falsehood 
was sufficiently strong to counteract any impression which their 
contents might be calculated to produce. It is not therefore with 
a view of exposing such misrepresentation, that any authentic 
account of the life of Mr. Fox can be deemed necessary." 

His Lordship is quite mistaken. These publications 
have produced a permanent effect on the generality of their 
readers. They may not indeed implicitly believe every 
particular these pamphlets contain, but there is not one 
reader in twenty that doubts of their being mainly true. 
How should the case be otherwise ? Persons remote from 
the sphere of Mr. Fox's acquaintance, can detect no internal 
evidence of falsehood. They have all heard anecdotes, 
which they have never heard contradicted, of his earlier 
habits, adventures, companions, and places of resort ; and 
when they are furnished with a large addition of what seems 
to them quite of a piece with what they have heard or read 
before, how are they to perceive any internal evidence of 
falsehood ? or who can blame them for believing straight 
forward, if there be no contradiction between one part of 
the production they are reading and another, and no 
material contradicion between the several productions they 
happen to meet with ? The substance of these pamphlets 
is so settled in the minds of the great majority of their 
readers, as the true history and character of Mr. Fox, that 
a formal work from one of his friends would have no small 
difficulty in displacing the belief. They will judge, how- 
ever, whether they ought not to attempt it, and whether 
justice to him be not a superior consideration to any points 
of delicacy relating to his surviving associates or opponents 
in political concerns. 



fox's theoey of histoet. 171 

" Telling the story of those times," was Mr. Pox's 
description of history. But if we try, by a strong effort of 
imagination, to carry ourselves back to any given period of 
past times, and if we take back along with us the history 
which professes to tell the story, it will be striking to con- 
sider how little it is in the power of history to perform^ 
Let our country be the scene and any past age the time. 
That country at the time, perhaps, contained seven or eight 
millions of human beings. Each one of these had his 
employments, interests, and schemes, his pleasures and 
sufferings, his accidents and adventures, his youth and the 
changes of advancing life ; and these pleasurable and painful 
interests had an infinite importance to the individual whose 
thoughts they filled, and whose heart they elated or afflicted. 
Of this immense crowd, and all their distinct, their anxious, 
and, in their own view, eventful courses of life, history 
knows nothing. Incalculable thousands, therefore, and 
tens of thousands, of emotions of joy and agony, of ardent 
hopes, of romantic schemes, of interesting disclosures, of 
striking dialogues, of strange incidents, of deep-laid plots, 
of fatal catastrophes, of scenes of death, that have had their 
place and their hour, that have been to certain human 
creatures the most important circumstances in the world 
at the time, and collectively have constituted the real state 
of the people, could not be saved, and cannot be redeemed, 
from sinking into oblivion. This vast crowd of beings have 
lived in the social and yet separating economy of families, 
and thus have been under an infinite number of distinct 
polities, each of which have experienced innumerable fluctua- 
tions, as to agreement or discord, as to resources, number, 
cultivation, relative sorrows or satisfaction, and intercourse, 
alliances, or quarrels, with the neighbouring little domestic 
states. All this, too, though constituting at all times so 
great a part of the moral condition of the good and evil of 
the community, is incapable of being brought within the 
cognizance of history. There are larger subdivisions of the 
nation, yet still so small as to be very numerous, into the 
inhabitants of villages and towns, with all the local interests 
and events of each ; and even these are for the most part 
invisible in the narrow sketch of the history of a nation. 
We may add all the train of events and interests connected 



172 FOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

with religious associations, with the different employments 
of the people, with civil and literary professions, and with 
all the departments of studious life, together with the 
lighter, but both characteristic and influential course of 
amusements and fashions. 

No one ever wished to see the world so literally filled 
with books as to leave no room for the grass and corn to 
grow, nor therefore regretted that a host of writers of 
superhuman knowledge and facility had not been appointed 
to record all the things interesting to individuals, or 
families, or districts, that have been done or said in a whole 
nation during centuries ; but it is at the same time to be 
acknowledged, thab nothing really deserving to be called a 
history of a nation can be written, unless the historian 
could exhibit something that should be a true and correct 
miniature of what has thus been an almost boundless 
assemblage of moral being and agency. He must, in 
description, reduce this vast assemblage of particulars to 
some general abstract, which shall give the true measures of 
all the kinds of good and evil that have existed in a whole 
nation at the assigned period ; and he must contrive some 
mode of narration that shall relate, as one course of action, 
the whole agency of millions of separate, and diversified, and 
often mutually opposing agents. But how is all this to be 
done ? The historian does not know a ten-thousandth part 
of all those facts of good and evil among individuals the 
collective amount of which formed the moral character and 
condition of any people during any given period, and which 
collective amount he is required to ascertain as he proceeds, 
and to give in a continued abstract ; nor, indeed, if he could 
know so vast an assemblage, would it be possible for him so 
to combine and compare all these things together, as to 
make any true abstract and estimate of the whole ; nor if he 
could make such a summary estimate, would it be of any 
material value, as thus divested of all particular appropri- 
ation to individuals, and given as the description of the 
character and state of an imaginary being called a nation. 
A nation having one character and condition, and acting as 
one being, is but an idle fiction after all ; since in plain 
sense it is as individuals that men are good or evil, are 
happy or miserable, and are engaged in an infinite diversity 



Otf NATIONAL HISTOEIES. 173 

of action, and not as constituent particles of some multitu- 
dinous monster. 

What is it, then, that a work professing to be the history 
of a nation actually does ? What it does is precisely this : 
it devotes itself to a dozen or two of the most distinguished 
persons of the times of which it professes to relate the 
story ; and because the stations and actions of those persons 
much affected the state and affairs of the nation, frequent 
notice is taken of the people in the way of illustrating the 
conduct of those principal persons. The natural order 
would seem to be, that the people, consisting of so many 
millions of living and rational beings, should form through- 
out the grand object ; and that the actions of these leading 
individuals, who by the very nature of the case will occupy, 
after the historian's best efforts to reduce their factitious 
importance, a very disproportionate share of attention, 
should be narrated as tending to explain, and for the 
purpose of explaining the state of the nation, and the 
changes in its character and affairs. It might be presumed 
that the happiness or calamities, the civilization or 
barbarism, the tranquillity or commotions, of a large 
assembled portion of the human race, is a much more con- 
siderable object of interest than the mere names, characters, 
and proceedings of about as many men as might be 
conveyed in a common stage-waggon ; and that the writer, 
who is making records of that nation, should be much more 
anxious, both to illustrate whatever in its condition and 
qualities was quite independent of these chief persons, and 
to elucidate the effect, on the popular condition, of the 
actions of these persons, than just to relate that these par- 
ticular persons acted in that particular manner, and then 
call this a history of the nation. But this latter is obviously 
the mode in almost all the works professing to be national 
histories. Throughout the work the nation appears as a 
large mass of material, which a very few persons in succes- 
sion have inherited, or bought, or stolen, and on which they 
have amused themselves with all manner of experiments. 
Some of them have chosen to cast it into one kind of polity, 
and others into another; and sometimes rival proprietors 
have quarrelled about it, and between them dashed and 
battered it out of every regular form, wasting and destroy- 



174 FOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

ing it, as men will often do in quarrelling about what each 
of them professes to deem very valuable, by tossing large 
pieces of it at each other's heads. And all the while the 
relator of the fray views this material in no other light than 
that of the question which of the two has the most right to 
it, and. which of them shows the most strength, dexterity, or 
determination, in employing it in the battle, If it is at one 
time moulded into a fair and majestic form, it is regarded 
purely as showing the hand of the artist ; if at the next turn 
it is again reduced to a mass, and thrown into some loath- 
some shape, it is no further a matter of concern than to 
marvel at the strange taste of the sovereign political potter. 
In plain terms, history takes no further account of the great 
mass of a nation or of mankind than as a mere appendage to 
a few individuals, and serving them in the capacity of a 
mechanical implement for labour, the passive subject of 
experiments in legislation, the deluded partisan of faction, 
and the general's disposable, that is consumable, force for 
war. The story of this great mass is briefly told, not for its 
own sake, but merely as a part of the story of the chiefs, 
and in a manner which indicates that the interests of the 
million were quite of secondary account in the historian's 
view to those of the individual. The histories of nations, 
therefore, are not what they pretend, and are commonly 
taken to be : history pretends to be the same thing to the 
time of a nation that geography is to the local space that it 
inhabits ; but a traveller that has just gone along a few of 
the great roads of a country and visited its chief towns, 
might just as properly call a sketch and a map of this 
journey a geographical survey of the country, as any of our 
national histories can pretend to be a satisfactory view of 
the state of a people through a course of ages. 

It may indeed be alleged that the grand defect in question 
i3 in a great degree the inevitable misfortune of history, 
from the very nature of things, which makes it impossible 
for the historian to do more than record the actions of a few 
conspicuous men. "We acknowledge this to be partly true ; 
and have only to observe that history therefore, from the 
narrowness of its scope, is of vastly less value as a revealer 
of human nature and a teacher of moral principles, than it 
has been commonly and pompously represented to be. 



fox's historical theoey. 175 

Exclusive of mere facts, the only truths that history 
peculiarly illustrates are few and obvious. -It were 
needless to mention the most conspicuous of its demon- 
strations, the stupendous depravity of our nature ; the 
whole of the interesting fragment before us, for instance, 
contains absolutely nothing but an account of follies and 
crimes, except indeed the heroic conduct of some persons 
who perished for opposing them. The more specific truths 
illustrated appear to be these : the invariable tendency of 
governments to become despotic, the universal disposition of 
nations to allow them to become so, the extreme hazard to 
liberty when sought by revolutions effected by arms ; and 
the infinite mischief of religious intolerance, and of all such 
measures of the state as naturally tend to create it, and give 
it an organized force and operation. 

A rigid adherence to Mr. Fox's theory (it is not so much 
his practice) of historical composition, would still more 
contract its scope and diminish its value. Lord Holland 
has explained this theory. 

"It is indeed probable, that his difficulties on this occasion 
were greater than any other modern historian would have had 
to encounter. I have mentioned them more particularly, because 
they in some measure arose from his scrupulous attention to 
certain notions he entertained on the nature of an historical 
composition. If indeed the work were finished, the nature of 
his design would be best collected from the execution of it ; but 
as it is unfortunately in an incomplete and unfinished state, his 
conception of the duties of an historian may very possibly be 
misunderstood. The consequence would be, that some passages, 
which, according to modern taste, must be called peculiarities, 
might, with superficial critics, pass for defects which he had 
overlooked, or imperfections which he intended to correct. It 
is therefore necessary to observe, that he had formed his plan so 
exclusively on the model of ancient writers, that he not only felt 
some repugnance to the modern practice of notes, but he thought 
that all which an historian wished to say, should be introduced 
as part of a continued narration, and never assume the appear- 
ance of a digression, much less of a dissertation annexed to it. 
From the period therefore that he closed his introductory chap- 
ter, he defined his duty as an author to consist in recounting 
the facts as they arose, or in his simple and forcible lan- 
guage, in telling the story of those times. A conversation which 
passed on the subject of the literature of the age of James IL 



176 FOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

proves his rigid adherence to these ideas, and perhaps the 
substance of it may serve to illustrate and explain them. In 
speaking of the writers of that period, he lamented that he had 
not devised a method of interweaving any account of them or 
their works, much less any criticism on their style, into his his- 
tory. On my suggesting the example of Hume and Voltaire, 
who had discussed such topics at some length, either at the end 
of each reign, or in a separate chapter, he observed, with much 
commendation of the execution of it, that such a contrivance 
might be a good mode of writing critical essays, but that it was 
in his opinion incompatible with the nature of his undertaking, 
which, if it ceased to be a narration, ceased to be a history. 
Such restraints assuredly operated as taxes upon his ingenuity, 
and added to that labour, which the observance of his general 
laws of composition rendered sufficiently great. On the rules of 
writing he had reflected much and deeply. His own habits 
naturally led him to compare them with those of public speak- 
ing, and the different and even opposite principles upon which 
excellence, is to be attained in these two great arts, were no 
unusual topics of his conversation." — Preface, pp. 35 — 38. 

The obvious question here is, how history could ever 
come to have such a specific nature. According to this 
representation, history might be a thing as defined as a 
species of animal or vegetable, which must absolutely have 
always a certain number of precise attributes, and could not 
have more or less without becoming a monster. But by 
what sovereign authority was its organization thus defini- 
tively fixed, and where are we to look for its pure original 
type ? And even if there were such an original definition 
and type, and if according to that authority nothing but a 
continuous narration should be entitled to the denomination 
of history, of what trifling consequence it would be that 
this name should be refused to a work that luminously nar- 
rated events, that made intervals in this narration, and filled 
them with eloquent, appropriate reflections, and profound 
reasonings, adapted to make the narration of facts both more 
striking and more instructive. The writer of such a work 
might say — I do not care whether you allow my work to be 
called a history or not ; even keep the insignificant term, if 
you will, sacred to the dry narrator, who has not under- 
standing enough to make important reflections as he goes 
on ; if it is on account of the eloquence and reasoning in 
my work that the name of history is denied it, I have only 



MODES OF WEITIFG HISTORY. 177 

to say that I have then written something better than 
history. 

History as an art is no more bound up by technical and 
exclusive laws than oratory or poetry. It is just any mode 
of narration in which any man chooses to relate to other 
men a series of facts. It may be written as a mere 
chronicle, or in a continuous and artfully arranged relation 
without reflections, or in a narration moderately interspersed 
with short observations, which cause but a momentary 
interruption of the story, or in a form admitting such 
frequent and large dissertations as to become in some sense 
a course of historical lectures. These various methods of 
bringing back the past to view, are adapted to the various 
kinds of inquisitiveness with which men seek a knowledge 
of the past. A few may be content with the bare knowledge 
that certain things happened at certain times : many wish 
to have the events adjusted into an order which shall exhibit 
their connexion from the beginning to the end ; some wish 
to comprehend the causes and tendencies of events, as well 
as to be apprized of any remarkable contemporary circum- 
stances, or distinguished men, that without being directly 
involved in the train of events, had any relation with any 
stage of them^ and a few are even desirous of formal 
deductions of moral and political doctrines. Excepting 
perhaps the first of these modes, it would be idle exclusively 
to appropriate or refuse the denomination of history to any 
one of them ; and especially to refuse the title, if it is 
deemed a title of dignified import, to such a mode of 
recording the events of past ages as should tend to explain 
the causes and various relations, and to enforce whatever 
important instructions they are capable of being made to 
yield to the readers ; for surely the highest office that his- 
tory can pretend to execute is that of raising on ages of the 
dead a tribute of instruction for the living. We have 
already said that the wisdom derivable from history is not 
very copious 5 but as far as may be, it should seem to be the 
business of history to collect all the little streams of valuable 
instruction in the distant regions of time (as the rills and 
rivulets among the remote mountains of Africa are drawn 
by successive confluence to form the Nile), and bring them 
down in one fertilizing current on the lower ages. 



178 POX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

To say that the ancient historians confined themselves to 
a straightforward, unbroken course of narration, is just the 
same thing, with respect to its authority in directing our 
practice, as to say they built their houses or shaped their 
clothes in this or that particular way ; we have always an 
appeal to the nature and reason of the thing. And we have 
also an appeal to universal colloquial practice, which may be 
assumed to be substantially the model for all communica- 
tions that are to be made from one human being to another 
by written words. If a man were relating to us any inter- 
esting train of actions or events of which he had been a 
witness, or had received his information from witnesses, we 
should expect him often to interrupt his narration with 
explanatory remarks at least ; and if ne were a very intelli- 
gent man, we should be delighted to hear him make obser- 
vations tending to establish important general truths from 
the facts related. We should positively compel him to do 
something of this; for we should just as much think of 
giving the lie to all he said, as of suffering him to go on an 
hour without raising some questions, both of fact and of 
general speculation. And we do not comprehend how 
written history can be under any law, unless some dictum 
of pedantry, to forbid it to imitate in a moderate degree 
what is so natural and so rational in a narration made 
personally by a judicious man to intelligent companions. 

Besides the information of the distinguished statesman's 
opinions on historical composition, the preface contains 
various interesting particulars of his habits and studies. It 
appears that his feelings were so far from being totally 
absorbed by ambition, that his mental resources were so 
great, and his susceptibility of interest so lively and 
versatile, that in the intervals of his most vehement public 
exertions, and during the season in which he seceded in a 
great measure from the political warfare, he enjoyed 
exquisitely the pleasures of elegant literature and rural 
nature. It is no less pleasing than it is unusual and 
wonderful, to see the simple and cordial feelings of the 
human being, and the taste of the man of letters, thus pre- 
serving their existence amidst the artificial interests and the 
tumults of a statesman's life, and unfolding themselves with 
energy in every season of retreat from the political sphere. 



fox's liteeaey habits. 179 

"With a true philanthropist, however, it will be a question of 
conscience how far he may innocently surrender himself 
even to the refined gratifications of imagination and taste, 
while sensible that very important interests may be 
depending on his more or less continued prosecution of the 
rougher exercises of political argument. There is no 
preserving patience to hear a man like Mr. Fox, and in 
such a period as that he lived in, talk of employing himself 
in preparing, an edition of Dryden's works ; an occupation 
in which he might consume, in settling the propriety of 
some couple of poetical epithets, just as much time as would 
have sufficed for preparing the outlines of a speech on the 
subject of parliamentary reform. It would be a fine thing, 
indeed, to see the great statesman solemnly weighing the 
merits of the meaning of some awkward line, which the poet 
perhaps wrote half asleep, when driven to finish the "tale" 
of verses which some Pharaoh of a bookseller had two or 
three times sent his imps to demand, for money paid, and 
perhaps spent in the wine that had imparted the cast of 
somnolency to the verse in question, Nor is it solely on 
the ground of his possible public usefulness, that we feel 
some want of complacency in hearing him exclaim, " Oh, 
how I wish that I could make up my mind to think it right, 
to devote all the remaining part of my life to such subjects, 
and such only!" It will suggest itself that toward the 
close of his life there might be, setting out of the question 
too any labours due to the public, some other things proper 
to be thought of, besides the vindication of Racine's poetical 
merits, and the chastisement of Dryden and others who had 
not done them justice. Notwithstanding, if all duties and 
services of stronger claim could have been first discharged, 
it would have been very gratifying to have received from 
him that projected treatise on Poetry, History, and Oratory, 
on the subject of which Lord Holland speaks. 

Many persons will be surprised to be informed that Mr. 
Fox was slow in composition ; and this inconvenience was 
increased by his extreme solicitude to keep his page clear of 
any trace of his trade, as he should seem to have regarded 
it, of public speaking. Prom this solicitude he refused 
admittance, by Lord Holland's account, to many expressions 
and sentiments which in a speech would have been eloquent. 

K 2 



180 FOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

This will be deemed an unfortunate and injurious fastidious- 
ness in our great orator ; for the consequence is, that we by 
no means find in the writing the whole mental power we 
know there was in the man. There is a certain bareness, 
and almost coldness, of style, from which a reader, not 
otherwise acquainted with the force of his talents, would 
never learn the irresistible power of his eloquence : in pass- 
ing along the pages of the work before us, we earnestly, and 
too often vainly, long for some of those mighty emanations 
of sentiment which used to set us on fire in hearing him. It 
were strange indeed, if he considered these living fires as 
something of too professional and vulgar a kind, to be allowed 
to impart their animation to history. It were strange if 
history, because its subjects are chiefly dead men, should be 
required to preserve a kind of analogy with their skeletons, 
and be cold, and dry, and still, like them. It is certainly 
the office of history to show us " a valley of dry bones ;" 
but it interests us most by the energy which transforms the 
whole scene into life. 

Many pages of Lord Holland's preface are occupied with 
a very curious account of the fate of King James's manu- 
scripts, deposited in the Scotch College at Paris. Mr. Fox's 
inquiries fully ascertained that they were destroyed during 
the late revolution. 

The period of our history, selected by Mr. Fox, was evi- 
dently adapted for what was of course his purpose, to illus- 
trate the nature and basis, and the whole progress of the 
attainment, of that political freedom which this country 
since the [Revolution of 1688 has enjoyed, notwithstanding 
many just causes of complaint, in a higher degree than per- 
haps any other nation of ancient or modern times. The 
events of that period were of a kind which, contemplated 
merely as a dramatic scene, containing a certain portion of 
incident, show, and action (the only view, unfortunately, in 
which most of U3 regard history), had in former years rather 
a strong effect on the imagination, even when we did not 
take the trouble to think deeply of the political tendency 
and result. But in this respect the case will be found to be 
now greatly changed. What has taken place in our own times, 
has thrown all the transactions of several centuries past, 
considered as matter of magnificent exhibition, quite into 



REMARKS OS" FOX S HISTORY, 181 

the shade. It is but very occasionally that the mind catches 
a momentary sight of the transactions of the times of the 
Charleses, James, and "William, through some opening in 
the stupendous train of revolutions, wars, abdications, 
dethronements, conquests, and changing constitutions, which 
has been moving, and is still rapidly moving, before our 
eyes. Who will think of going back to trace the adventures of 
one or two monarchs-errant of former times, when there are 
whole parties of them up and down Europe, with a sufficient 
probability of additions to the number ? Who will go almost 
two centuries back to survey a nation risen in arms against 
a tyrant, though totally ignorant of the true principles of 
liberty, when they can see such a phenomenon, just spring- 
ing up in the neighbourhood a few weeks since ? The con- 
tests of parties in those times, the questions of prerogative, 
the loyalty of faction leaders, the devising of plans of 
government, the ravage of armies, the progress of a com- 
mander into a despotic monarch, the subsidence of national 
enthusiasm into the apathy of slaves, are apt to affect us as 
an old and dull story, at a time when no one cares to buy a 
map of Europe, or count its kingdoms, or go over the list of 
its monarchs, or read one page about the nature of its con- 
stitutions of government, or ask one sentence about the rival 
parties in its states, from knowing that a few months may 
put all such information out of date. On such accounts, as 
well as from the present indisposition to any study of poli- 
tics as a science, we have little expectation that the interest- 
ing production before us will do more than merely gratify 
the literary curiosity excited by the name of the great 
author. The noble spirit of liberty which pervades every 
part of it, will be flatly offensive to many of his countrymen; 
and will appear to others as a kind of high-spirited and 
patriotic romance, proving that the sanguine temperament 
of the orator of the people wonderfully retained his juvenility 
of opinion in his more advanced age, in spite of the years 
and the events that have made them wiser. 

So much of the volume as Mr. Eox wrote, consists of 
three chapters, of which the first is called introductory, and 
contains a brief retrospect of the reign of Charles II., and 
some of the circumstances of what was named the Common- 
wealth. The two latter go over about seven months of the 



182 FOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

reign of James II., and form the commencement of the 
intended history, which, if the author had lived and enjoyed 
leisure, would probably have been brought down to a period 
lower than the Kevolution ; it does not appear that his 
thoughts had decidedly fixed on any precise point of time as 
the limit. 

It was not to be expected that any singular novelty either 
of fact or doctrine should be brought out, in the review of a 
period so often subject to research and controversial dis- 
cussion ; but we feel, as we did expect to feel, that we go 
over the ground with a better light than wo have done before. 
There is a simplicity in the opening out of the involved 
crowd of characters and affairs, which brings both the indi- 
vidual objects, and their relations to one another, more pal- 
pably into our sight. "We feel how delightful it is to go 
through an important and confused scene in the company of 
such an illuminating mind, and how easily we could surren- 
der ourselves to an almost implicit reliance on its judgment. 
Connected with this extremely discriminating analysis, and 
distinct statement of facts, the reader will find eyery where 
a more unaffected unlaboured independence of opinion, than 
in perhaps any other of our historians ; the author seems to 
judge freely, as by a kind of inherent necessity ; and he con- 
demns (for indeed this is the duty of his office in almost 
every page), with an entire indifference to those circum- 
stances to which even historians are often obsequious. He 
passes sentence on nobles and kings with as little fear, and 
at the same time in as calm a tone, as the court that sum- 
moned, immediately after their death, the monarchs of 
Egypt. "With respect to this calmness, it gives a dignified 
air to history; yet we will acknowledge that in several 
instances, in this work, after the indictment and proof of 
enormous wickedness, we have wished the sentence pro- 
nounced with somewhat more emphasis. The mildness of 
the man, occasionally, a little qualifies in expression the 
energy of justice ; but it only qualifies, it does not pervert 
it ; he most impartially condemns where he ought, and we 
have only wished, in a few cases, a severer acerbity of language. 
The criminal charges, however, are made with a fulness and 
aggravation which might sometimes perhaps be deemed to 
excuse the historian from formally pronouncing any judg- 



EEMAEKS ON" FOX'S HISTOEY. 183 

ment, as no expression could be found by which the character 
of the criminal could be more blasted, than it is already by 
the statement of the crimes. 

If the work had been carried through the whole of the 
selected period, it would have been an admirable contrast 
and antidote to the parallel part of Hume's history, in point 
of honesty of representation. Our author justly accuses 
Hume of a constant partiality to the cause of the tyrants in 
his statement and reasonings, and of a base disingenuousness 
in his observations on the conduct of Charles II. respecting 
the death of Algernon Sidney ; he convicts him of a direct 
and shameful fabrication of a parliamentary debate in 1685, 
which debate did not take place, nor anything like it ; and 
he ascribes to him an almost puerile respect for kings, as 
such. After all this, we own it requires our whole stock of 
patience to read those extremely respectful and nattering 
expressions which he seeks every occasion, and once or twice 
goes much out of his way, to bestow on this historian ; 
expressions which are applied not only to his talents, to 
which they would be always due, but to his character, to 
which these articles of accusation, exhibited by his admirer, 
may prove what sort of moral principles are fairly attribut- 
able. The passage relating to the condemnation of Sydney, 
is a good specimen of our author's decided manner of ex- 
pressing his opinion, and also of his strange prejudice in 
favour of Hume's moral qualities. 

Was it ever understood, till now, that a man eminent at 
once for the depth and soundness of his understanding, and 
the integrity and benevolence of his heart, can be an apolo- 
gist (the full evidence of the nature of the facts being before 
him), for the foulest murders of a tyrant ! Would not that 
integrity and benevolence of heart have been high in favour 
at the court of such a tyrant, which should have put in exer- 
cise so strong an understanding to preserve his majesty in a 
state of entire self-complacency while perpetrating the mur- 
der of one of the noblest of his subjects and of mankind ? 
As to posthumous infamy, and the retribution to be inflicted 
by history, we wonder whether such a thing ever once 
occurred to the thoughts of a tyrant, who, in pursuing to 
death a man of such heroic virtue as to have offended or 
alarmed him, could spurn every human sympathy, defy the 



184 POX'S JAMES THE SECOKD. 

indignation of all good men, and find a tribe of courtiers, 
comprising nobles, prelates, and scholars, ever ready to ap- 
plaud his justice. And if by " conscience" is here meant, 
that sentiment which connects with our actions a reference 
to a God and a future judgment, it is surely a very hopeful 
thing, that a man, who can deliberately brave the divine 
vengeance, should be intimidated from committing a crime, 
by thinking of the fearful doom which awaits him in the 
paragraphs of some historian ! 

In speaking of the fate of Charles I., Mr. Fox, in an 
argument of great candour and delicacy, disapproves of his 
execution, on the ground both of justice and policy, but 
especially the latter. He passes in too much haste over the 
character of Cromwell, and gives a rather equivocal estimate 
of it, except indeed as contrasted with that'of Washington, 
whom he takes the occasion, afforded by the partial simi- 
larity of the situations of the two men, to celebrate in terms 
of the highest possible eulogium. 

"We should hope the notion that good political institu- 
tions will be certain of an efficacious operation, by the mere 
strength of the dead wisdom, if we may so call it, that resides 
in their construction, independently of the character of the 
men who are in the administration of them, has lost its 
influence on the public mind ; if not, the following striking 
lesson ought to contribute to expel such a vain fancy. 

"The reign of Charles II. forms one of the most singular, 
as well as of the most important periods of history. It is 
the era of good laws and bad government. The abolition of 
the Court of Wards, the repeal of the writ de Heretico Com- 
burendo, the Triennial Parliament Bill, the establishment of the 
rights of the House of Commons in regard to impeachment, the 
expiration of the License Act, and above all, the glorious statute 
of Habeas Corpus, have therefore induced a modern writer of 
great eminence to fix the year 1679 as the period at which our 
constitution had arrived at its greatest theoretical perfection, 
but he owns, in a short note upon the passage alluded to, that 
the times immediately following were times of great practical 
oppression. What a field for meditation does this short obser- 
vation, from such a man, furnish ! What reflection does it not 
suggest to a thinking mind, upon the inefficacy of human laws, 
and the imperfection of human constitutions ! We are called 
from the contemplation of the progress of our constitution, and 



EEMAEKS ON FOX'S HISTOEY. 185 

our attention is fixed with the most minute accuracy to a 
particular point, when it is said to have risen to its utmost 
perfection. Here we are then at the best moment of the best 
constitution that human wisdom ever framed. What follows ? 
A time of oppression and misery, not arising from external 
causes, such as war, pestilence, or famine, nor even from any 
such alteration of the laws as might be supposed to impair this 
boasted perfection, but from a corrupt and wicked administra- 
tion, which all the so-much admired checks of our constitution 
were not able to prevent. How vain, then, how idle, how pre- 
sumptuous is the opinion that laws can do everything ! and how 
weak and pernicious the maxim founded upon it, that measures, 
not men, are to be attended to !" — P. 20. 

The historian appears to have examined a great deal of 
evidence on the subject of the pretented Popish plot, as the 
result of which he gives it as his opinion, that the greater 
part of those who were concerned in the iniquitous prosecu- 
tion of the Papists, were rather under the influence of '* an 
extraordinary degree of blind credulity,' ' than guilty of 
" the deliberate wickedness of planning and assisting in the 
perpetration of legal murder." 

It is most melancholy to contemplate a great nation, 
which not very long before had been animated, in however 
rude a manner, and however ill-instructed in political 
science, with a high spirit of liberty, which had raised its 
strong arm against the impositions of a monarch who 
thought it necessary for a governor to be a despot, and had 
prostrated him and his armies in the dust, submitting at 
last to the unqualified despotism of a much more odious 
tyrant. The view is still more mortifying, when we con- 
sider that this tyrant had never performed any one great 
action, and possessed no one virtue under heaven, to palliate 
even in appearance his depravity, and lessen to the people, 
the ignominy of being his slaves. But it is most mortifying 
of all to find that these slaves were beaten and trodden 
into such fatuity, that they voluntarily abdicated all the 
rites of both men and brutes, and humbly lauded the 
master who sported with their privileges, their property, 
and their blood. ~No inconsiderable part of this volume 
consists of descriptions of such national humiliation; and 
we transcribe a short specimen, immediately following the 
account of Charles's turning off his last parliament, with 



186 FOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

the full resolution never to call another; to "which resolu- 
tion, indeed, Louis had bound him, as one of the conditions 
on which he was to receive his stipend," — 

" No measure was ever attended with more complete success. 
The most flattering addresses poured in from all parts of the 
kingdom ; divine right and indiscriminate obedience were every- 
where the favourite doctrines ; and men seemed to vie with 
each other who should have the honour of the greatest share in 
the glorious work of slavery, by securing to the king, for the 
present, and, after him, to the duke, absolute and uncontrollable 
power. They, who, either because Charles had been called a 
forgiving prince by his flatterers (upon what ground I could 
never discover), or from some supposed connexion between indo- 
lence and good nature, had deceived themselves into a hope that 
his tyranny would be of the milder sort, found themselves much 
disappointed in their expectations. The whole history of the 
remaining part of his reign, exhibits an uninterrupted series of 
attacks upon the liberty, property, and lives of his subjects." — 
P. 43. 

The most outrageous operations of Charles's tyranny were 
carried on in Scotland. This work exhibits, in considerable 
detail, the horrible system of proscription and murder, 
which has given him a very reasonable claim to the com- 
pany, in history or anywhere else, of Tiberius ; for so we 
must be allowed to think, notwithstanding Mr. Fox has 
taken exception to Burnet's classing these two names 
together, forgetting that he himself had done the very same 
thing in an earlier page. 

The scene becomes more hateful at every step ; till at 
length we behold one general spectacle of massacre, in 
which the most infernal riots of cruelty to which military 
ruffians, fully let loose, could be stimulated, were authorized 
and applauded by a government, which colleges and digni- 
taries, and a large and preponderating part of the nation, 
adored as of divine authority, and really deserved, as a 
reward of such a faith, the privilege of adoring. It is after 
viewing such a course of transactions, that we want expres- 
sions of somewhat more emphatical reprobation, in closing 
the account with this wicked monarch, than those, though 
very strong and comprehensive, which Mr. Fox has used in 
the concluding delineation of his character. It was very 
proper to notice his politeness and affability, his facility of 






CHARLES II. AND HIS MISTRESSES. 187 

temper ; and kindnesses to his mistresses ; but we think 
they should not have been so mentioned, as to have even 
the slightest appearance of a set-off against the malignity of 
his wickedness and the atrocities of his government. 

The manner in which Charles's kindness to his mistresses 
is mentioned, is a remarkable illustration of the importance 
of personal morality to a historian, as well as to a statesman. 

" His recommendation of the Duchess of Portsmouth and 
Mrs. Gwyn, upon his death- bed, to his successor, is much to his 
honour ; and they who censure it, seem, in their zeal to show 
themselves strict moralists, to have suffered their notions of vice 
and virtue to have fallen into strange confusion. Charles's con- 
nexion with those ladies might be vicious, but at a moment 
when that connexion was upon the point of being finally and 
irrevocably dissolved, to concern himself about their future 
welfare, and to recommend them to his brother with earnest 
tenderness, was virtue. It is not for the interest of morality 
that the good and evil actions of bad men, should be con- 
founded."— P. 64. 

"We do not know that any moralist ever forbade a depart- 
ing criminal to be concerned for the welfare of his surviving 
companions in guilt, only it would be enjoined that shame 
and penitence should mingle with this concern ; but every 
moralist will be indignant at this gentle equivocal mode of 
touching that vice, by which it is notorious that the 
example of the king contributed to deprave the morals of 
the nation, as much as his political measures to exterminate 
its freedom. It is most signally remarkable what a careful 
silence is maintained, in this work, respecting the state of 
morals during this reign. Is it then no business of history 
to take account of such a thing ? Even regarding the matter 
in a political view, is the depravity of a people never 
to be reckoned among the causes, and the most powerful 
causes, of their sinking quietly under despotism ? 

The commencement of James's reign, as far as the work 
before us has illustrated it, was a mere continuation of the 
preceding, as James, at his accession, graciously promised 
his subjects it should. This promise was received with 
grateful joy by a large proportion of the English nation, 
and by the governing party even in Scotland, whose fulsome, 
abominable address of congratulation is given in this work. 



188 FOX'S JAMES THE SECOND. 

Their joy and loyalty were carried to the height of enthusi- 
asm, no doubt, when they found the same infernal work of 
massacre animated to redoubled activity, and were honoured 
with the charge of executing an act, which extended to all 
persons hearing conventicle preaching, the punishment of 
death. 

Thougb James was a papist, Mr. Fox has proved, by the 
most decisive arguments, that his grand leading object was 
the establishment of an absolute despotism ; and that any 
designs he might entertain of introducing Popery, would 
have been kept in reserve till this was accomplished. 
Meanwhile he much courted the zealous adherents of the 
Established Church, and he plainly intimated that they had 
been found the firmest friends of such government, as that 
of his father, his brother, and himself. It is strange that a 
man of Mr. Fox's candour should, throughout the book, 
have contrived to find the very same thing. It surely 
became him, in the justice of history, to have particularized 
the many noble efforts made by the churchmen of those 
times, in resistance of the doctrines and the practices of 
of despotism. He ought to have taken notice of what was 
so zealously done and written, by ecclesiastical dignitaries, 
in behalf of liberty of conscience, and in prevention of all 
persecution for religious opinions and methods of worship. 

A large space is occupied with the invasions and pro- 
ceedings of Monmouth and Argyle. The account of the 
execution of Monmouth is finely written; but the most 
interesting part of the whole volume, is the account of the 
last days and the death of Argyle. We should have tran- 
scribed this part, but that we are persuaded it will appear 
in very many publications, and in every work that shall 
profess to be a collection of the finest passages in the 
English language. It is a picture drawn with the happiest 
simplicity, though with one slight blemish, of one of the 
most enchanting examples of heroic virtue that history or 
poetry ever displayed. It is closed with what we felt to be 
the most eloquent sentence in the whole work. 



189 



ON STATESMEN. 

Lives of British Statesmen. By John MacDiarmid, Esq., Author 
of an Inquiry into the System of National Defence in Great Bri- 
tain, and of an Inquiry into the Principles of Subordination. 
4to. 1808. 

If we have not learnt to feel for statesmen, as such, a suffi- 
cient share of that reverential respect which pronounces 
their names with awe, which stands amazed at the immen- 
sity of their wisdom, which looks up to them as the con- 
centrated reason of the human species, which trembles to 
insinuate or to hear insinuated against them the slightest 
suspicion of obliquity of understanding or corruption of 
moral principle, and which regards it as quite a point of 
religion to defend their reputation, it has not been that we 
have not received many grave instructions and rebukes on 
this head from much better men. A hundred times it has 
been repeated to us, that a peculiar and extraordinary 
genius is requisite to constitute a statesman; that men, 
who by situation and office are conversant with great con- 
cerns, acquire a dignity and expansion of mind ; that those 
who can manage the affairs of nations prove themselves by 
the fact itself to be great men ; that their elevated position 
gives them an incomparably clearer and more comprehen- 
sive view of national subjects than is to be attained by us 
on the low level of private life ; that we ought, in deference 
to them, to repress the presumption of our understandings ; 
that in short it is our duty to applaud or be silent. 

With a laudable obsequiousness we have often tried to 
conform ourselves to our duty, at least as prescribed in the 
latter part of this alternative ; and we have listened respect- 
fully to long panegyrics on the sagacity, fortitude, and dis- 
interestedness of the chief actors and advisers in state 
affairs, and to inculcations of the gratitude due to men who 
will thus condescend, in their lofty stations (which at the 
same time it is presumed they can claim to hold for no 
other purpose), to toil and care for us the vulgar mass of 
mankind. Presently these laudatory and hortatory strains 
would soften into an elegiac plaintiveness, bewailing the 



190 LIVES OP BEITISH STATESMEN" 

distresses of men in high situations in the state. The 
pathetic song has deplored the oppressive labours of thought 
required in forming their schemes, their cruel exposure to 
the persecutions of an adverse party, the difficulty of pre- 
serving harmony of operation in a wide and complex system 
involving many men and many dispositions, their anxiety in 
providing for the wants of the state, the frequent failure of 
their best concerted measures, their sleepless nights, their 
aching heads, and their sufferings from the ungrateful 
reproaches of the people. Here our impatience has over- 
come our good resolutions, and we have been moved to 
reply. We have said — Is not the remedy for all these 
sorrows at all times in their reach? They can quit their 
stations and all the attendant distresses whenever they 
please, in behalf of other men who are waiting, eager almost 
to madness, to obtain their share of all the vexations you 
are commiserating. But while you are so generously de- 
ploring the hardships of their situation, they are anxiously 
devising every possible contrivance to secure themselves in 
possession of it, and nothing less than the power that put 
them in can wrench them out. It is vastly reasonable to 
be requiring lenient judgments on the conduct, and respect- 
ful sympathy for the feelings, of public men, while we see 
with what a violent passion power and station are sought, 
with what desperate grappling claws of iron they are retain- 
ed, and with what grief and mortification they are lost. It 
might be quite time enough, we should think, to commence 
this strain of tenderness, when in order to fill the places of 
power and emolument it has become necessary to drag by 
force retiring virtue and modest talent from private life, and 
to retain them in those situations by the same compulsion, 
in spite of the most earnest wishes to retreat, excited by 
delicacy of conscience, and a disgust at the pomp of state. 
So long as men are pressing as urgently into the avenues of 
place and power as ever the genteel rabble of the metropolis 
have pushed and crowded into the play-house to see the 
new actor, and so long as a most violent conflict is main- 
tained between those who are in power and those who want 
to supplant them, we think statesmen form by eminence 
the class of persons, to whose characters both the contem- 
porary examiner and the historian are not only authorized, 



"RIGOROUS ESTIMATE OF STATE S-MBK" A DT7TT. 191 

but in duty bound, to administer justice in its utmost 
rigour, without one particle of extenuation. While forcing 
their way toward offices in the state, and while maintaining 
the possession once acquired, they are apprized, or might 
and should be apprized, of the nature of the responsibility, 
and it is certain they are extremely well apprized of the 
privileges. They know that the public welfare depends, in 
too great a degree, on their conduct, and that the people 
have a natural instinctive prejudice in favour of their lead- 
ers, and are disposed to confide to the utmost extent. They 
know that a measure of impunity unfortunate for the public 
is enjoyed by statesmen, their very station affording the 
means both of concealment and defence for their delinquen- 
cies. They know that in point of emolument they are more 
than paid from the labours of the people for any services 
they render ; and that they are not bestowing any particular 
favour on the country by holding their offices, as there are 
plenty of men, about as able and as good as themselves, 
ready to take their places if they would abdicate them. 
When to all this is added the acknowledged fact that the 
majority of this class of men have trifled with their high 
responsibility, and taken criminal advantage of their privi- 
leges, we can have no patience to hear of any claims for a 
special indulgence of charity, in reading and judging the 
actions of statesmen. 

On the ground of morality in the abstract, separately 
from any consideration of the effect of his representations, 
the biographer of statesmen is bound to a very strict appli- 
cation of the rules of justice, since these men constitute, or 
at least belong to, the uppermost class of the inhabitants of 
the earth. They have stronger inducements arising from 
situation, than other men, to be solicitous for the rectitude 
of their conduct ; their station has the utmost advantage 
for commanding the assistance of whatever illumination a 
country contains ; they see on the large scale the effect of 
all the grand principles of action ; they make laws for the 
rest of mankind, and they direct the execution of justice. 
If the eternal laws of morality are to be applied with a soft 
and lenient hand in the trial and judgment of such an order 
of men, it will not be worth while to apply them at all to 
the subordinate classes of mankind ; as a morality that 



192 LIVES OF BRITISH STATESMEN. 

exacts but little where the means and the responsibility are 
the greatest, would betray itself to contempt by pretending 
to sit in solemn judgment on the humbler subjects of its 
authority. The laws of morality should operate, like those 
of nature, in the most palpable manner on the largest sub- 
stances. 

Another reason for the rigid administration of justice to 
the characters of men that have been high in the state, is to 
secure the utility of history, or rather to preserve it from 
becoming to the last degree immoral and noxious. For 
since history is almost entirely occupied with the actions of 
this class of men, and for the much greater part with their 
vices and their crimes, and the calamitous consequences, it 
is easy to see that a softened mode of awarding justice to 
these characters will turn the whole force of history to the 
effect of depraving our moral principles, by partially con- 
ciliating both our feelings and judgments to those hateful 
courses of action, of which we are already very much too 
tolerant in consequence of being from our childhood fami- 
liarized to the view of them, in every account of the past 
and present state of the world. And in this way we are 
inclined to think that history has actually been, on the 
whole, the enemy of morality. Its readers will have too 
light an impression of the atrocity of great crimes and 
great criminals. Great crimes constitute so large a pro- 
portion of the historian's materials for constructing splendid 
exhibitions, that if he does not insensibly become almost 
partial to them, as a general does to a band of the most 
cruel savages whose ferocity he has repeatedly employed to 
obtain his victories, his hatred admits at least a certain 
softening of literary interest ; and in many a glowing de- 
scription of enormous wickedness, we fancy we see the hand 
of the painter or poet rather than the moral censor. Artful 
combinations of odious circumstances, epithets to aggravate 
each indignant line, eloquence of execration, are possibly 
not spared ; but we still find ourselves rather invited as 
spectators of a splendid tragedy, than summoned as jurors 
in a solemn court of justice. The diminution or modifica- 
tion, in the historian's mind, of the abhorrence of crimes, in 
consequence of the benefit which he derives from them as 
striking materials for his work, aids the operation of any 



THE BA.D MORALITY OF HISTORY. 193 

other cause which may tend to render him indulgent to the 
actor of them. And often the great criminal has had some 
one virtue, or at least some very showy faults, adapted, in 
in the historian's view, to relieve and even extenuate the 
account of his wickedness ; he might have munificence, 
a love of letters, a very lofty kind of ambition, or what a 
lax morality would term a liberal love of pleasure ; at any 
rate, he probably had talents, and this is perhaps after all 
the most seductive of the distinctions by which a bad man 
can dazzle our judgments. The historian, besides, acquires 
a kind of partiality for an eminent actor in the times and 
transactions which he describes, from even the circumstance 
of being, in imagination, so long in his company. In pro- 
secuting his work, he returns to this person each morning, 
for weeks, months, or even years ; the interest of the lite- 
rary labour consists in following this person through the 
whole train of his proceedings ; the disposition for quarrel- 
ling with him gradually subsides ; the odious moral features 
are familiarized to the view ; while perhaps the conviction 
of his great attainments, and the wonder at his achieve- 
ments, are progressively augmented ; extenuations suggest 
themselves, and occasionally even partial claims on applause; 
the writer becomes a kind of participator in the activity 
and importance of the transactions, while he is clear of all 
the guilt : and thus by degrees the rigour of justice is for- 
gotten, and flagrant iniquity is exhibited with so little 
prominence of turpitude, that it depends very much on the 
moral state of the reader's own mind, whether he shall 
regard it with indulgence or detestation. We shall not 
wonder at the bad morality of history, if we combine this 
view of the injurious effect of the historian's studies on his 
mind, with the consideration that the eminent historians of 
antiquity were pagans, and the most distinguished ones of 
modern times very near the moral level of paganism, by 
means of their irreligion. 

It is, again, very desirable that a rigid justice should be 
maintained in delineating and recording the characters and 
actions of statesmen, because it is in the nature of the 
people, in all countries, to feel a kind of superstitious vene- 
ration for those who are so much above them as to have the 
command of their public affairs. Place men, of whatever 

o 



194 LIVES OP BBITISH STATESMEN. 

sort, in power, and there will need no burning fiery furnace 
to intimidate their fellow-citizens into reverential prostra- 
tion. On the mere strength of their situation they shall 
gain credit to almost all they pretend, and acknowledgment 
of right to all they arrogate ; fine talents and fine qualities 
in abundance shall be ascribed to them ; and the crowd 
shall look up with awe to the beings that can make speeches 
and enactments, appointments and imposts, treaties and 
wars. Or even if the deficiency of integrity and abilities 
is so notorious as to force a reluctant conviction on the 
people, the high station secures a certain tolerance which 
a man in humbler life must not too confidently expect for 
vices and incapacity. It is matter of great difficulty and 
effort for these men to sin away the whole stock of credit 
and partiality, which sounding titles and elevated stations 
have raised for them in the popular mind. Even our pride 
is in their favour; our pride as respecting ourselves is 
unwilling to believe, that we are all passing our lives in 
submissive homage to persons not at all our betters in 
wisdom or morals ; and our pride of national comparison 
feels it absolutely necessary to maintain, that we are wise 
enough to put as much wisdom at our head as any people 
in the world can boast. "We mean this as a description not 
of the English nation in particular ; it is the case of every 
nation. 

Now this superstitious respect for persons possessing 
consequence in the state is injurious to the people in two 
ways ; it deteriorates their moral principles, and it endan- 
gers their political condition. If statesmen, as a class, had 
been proved by experience to be the purest of all saints, 
then this excess of reverence for them might be a most 
salutary sentiment, as reinforcing the attractions and au- 
thority of virtue by all the influence held over our minds 
by these its noblest examples. But it has been found till 
now, or at least till very lately, that statesmen in general 
deem it necessary to keep in their possession about the 
same quantity of vice as their neighbours ; and the respect 
which the people feel for the men, on account of their 
station, prevents the just degree of contempt or abhorrence 
for the vice. All the palliation which vice acquires, as 
beheld in connexion with respected personages, it is sure 






NECESSITY OE POPULAR VIGILANCE. 195 

afterwards to retain as viewed in itself; the principles 
therefore by which its noxiousness should be esteemed are 
depraved ; and all who are disposed to like it, will gladly 
take the privilege of committing it at the same reduced 
expense of conscience and character, as their superiors. 
In every community the estimate of the evil of immorality, 
in the abstract, will infallibly be reduced nearly to the 
level of that opinion of its evil which is entertained respect- 
ing it, as committed by the most privileged class of that 
community. 

As to the danger which threatens the political condition 
of the people, no illustration can well make it plainer. If 
statesmen were an importation of celestials, partaking in 
no degree of the selfishness and perversity of mortal men, 
it would be a delightful thing for us to throw into their 
hands an unlimited power over all the great concerns of a 
nation, and prosecute our individual purposes, and indulge 
our tastes and domestic affections, in perfect security that 
all would go right in the general affairs of the nation. Or 
if the constitution of things were such, that the interest of 
the leaders were necessarily coincident entirely with the 
interest of the people, it might be safe to dismiss the 
anxiety of vigilance under the presiding direction of even a 
party of mere human creatures ; as the passengers in a ship 
give themselves very tranquilly to their amusements or their 
sleep, because they are certain the official conductors of the 
vessel have necessarily just the same interest in its safety as 
themselves. But it is obvious that innumerable occasions 
will present themselves to men in power, of serving their 
own interests quite distinctly from those of the people, and 
decidedly to their detriment. Indeed, the personal interests 
of these men are necessarily opposed to the grand popular 
interest of freedom itself, insomuch that no people ever 
long maintained their internal liberty,, who did not maintain 
it by precaution against the very statesmen they were 
obliged to employ. Every thing that ascertains the freedom 
of the people necessarily fixes the bounds to the power of 
those who are placed over them ; and it would be requiring 
too much of human nature to expect that men, whom 
ambition, for the most part, has raised to the stations of 
power, should not regard with an evil eye these limitations 

o 2 



]96 LIVES OF BEIT1SH STATESMEN", 

to the scope of their predominant passion, and consider 
them as obstacles which they are to remove or surmount if 
they can. And their high station, as we have observed, 
affords them many facilities for concealing and protecting 
themselves, in the prosecution of measures for the gradual 
subversion of liberty ; in which course and for which pur- 
pose very many statesmen, according to the testimony of 
history, have employed the powers and resources vested, 
and the confidence reposed in them by the nation, as the 
persons officially engaged to guard its interests. Now, the 
thing which beyond all other things would be desired by 
men with such designs, is the prevalence in the public 
mind of a blind veneration for statesmen, that attributes to 
them rectitude and talents of too high an order to be 
inspected and scrutinized, and controlled by any profane 
arrogance of the people. Under favour of this state of the 
popular mind, they have but to make pompous professions 
of patriotism, and act in tolerable concert, and they may 
obtain unlimited confidence while they are both wasting 
the immediate resources of the country, and assiduously 
sapping away all that which can enable each individual 
inhabitant to say, I am no man's property or slave. It is 
the duty, therefore, of all who wish well to mankind, to 
remonstrate against this pernicious infatuation ; and it is 
our official duty to represent that the biographical flatterers 
of statesmen are among the most wicked perverters of the 
public mind. 

Mr. Macdiarmid is not of this class. His language is 
perhaps a little too indulgent, occasionally, to meet our 
ideas of the severe duties of the office he has chosen ; but 
we regard him on the whole as a faithful and impartial 
biographer. He never gets into such a current of panegyric 
that he cannot for his life stop to notice a fault. He 
appears in a considerable degree the friend of several of the 
eminent men whose actions he records ; but he is such a 
friend as, if he could have been contemporary and acquainted 
with any of them, would not have withheld those candid 
animadversions which might have contributed to make them 
greater benefactors of the times, and greater ornaments to 
history. He does not profess to present their characters in 
any new light, nor to have drawn facts and anecdotes from 



GENERAL QUALITIES OE MACE-IAR-MID's WORK. 197 

rare and unpublished records, but be thought it might not 
be an unacceptable service to the public to give a somewhat 
more ample, and a more minute and personal sketch, of 
these distinguished men, than can be found, or could with 
propriety be contained, in any one history of their times. 
Accordingly, he has employed much industry and judgment 
in deducing, from the information supplied by a number of 
historical and biographical works, very clear narrations of 
the lives of Sir Thomas More and Lords Burleigh, Strafford, 
and Clarendon. The narration is very successful in the 
point of keeping the individual always fully in view, while it 
is often necessarily extended, by the public nature of his 
actions, to the whole breadth of the national history of his 
times. The writer in general confines himself very strictly 
to his narration, and is very sparing of reflections ; a for- 
bearance practised, no doubt, from the conviction that a 
narrative written with fidelity, force, and discrimination, 
might in general be very safely left, from the obvious 
simplicity of its moral, to the reader's own understanding. 
It is also a commendable modesty to keep at a great 
distance from the fault of those historians who might seem 
to be persuaded that the transactions they record took 
place positively for no other purpose on earth but to draw 
forth certain wise notions from their minds. Yet many 
readers, and we do not disclaim to be of the number, are 
indolent enough to wish the historian would just give the 
direction to their thoughts ; and if he can manage to time 
his reflections well, and to avoid being very trite or prolix, we 
are very willing to divide with him the merit of being very 
philosophical on every circumstance of the narration. We 
are not, perhaps, of opinion that Mr. Macdiarmid's reflections 
would have been more than usually profound; but they would 
have still further manifested that sound, liberal sense which 
is already so apparent. The style has quite the measured 
and equable form of set historical composition ; it is, how- 
ever, perspicuous, unaffected, and in a very respectable degree, 
vigorous. The book offers a more speedy and elegant intro- 
duction than was before attainable, to an acquaintance with 
four of the most distinguished characters in our political 
history. 

"With regard to the first of them, Sir Thomas More, we 
will acknowledge it must be nearly impossible for the 






198 LIVES OP BRITISH STATESMEN. 

historian of his life to avoid becoming very decidedly, and 
even enthusiastically attached to him. No great harm 
would result from a relaxation, in this instance, of that law 
of severity under which we have represented that the lives 
of statesmen ought to be written; for no second instance of 
the same kind will be found in the subsequent political 
annals of England. Indeed, he is a person so unique in the 
records of statesmen, that we can see no chance that any 
utility in the way of example, would arise from a display of 
his life and character. Some small degree of similarity is 
pre-requisite, as the basis of any reasonable hope of seeing 
an example imitated; and therefore it would seem very 
much in vain, as to this purpose, to display a statesman and 
courtier who was perfectly free from all ambition, from the 
beginning of his career to the end ; who was brought into 
office and power by little less than compulsion ; who met 
general flattery and admiration with a calm indifference, and 
an invariable perception of their vanity; who amidst the 
caresses of a monarch longed to be with his children ; who 
was the most brilliant and vivacious man in every society 
he entered into, and yet was more fond of retirement even 
than other statesmen were anxious for public glare ; who 
displayed a real and cordial hilarity on descending from 
official eminence to privacy and comparative poverty ; who 
made all other concerns secondary to devotion ; and who, 
with the softest temper and mildest manners, had an 
inflexibility of principle which never at any moment knew 
how to hesitate between a sacrifice of conscience and of life. 
The mind rests on this character with a fascination which 
most rarely seizes it in passing over the whole surface of 
history. In this progress we often meet with individuals 
that we greatly admire ; but the bare sentiment of admira- 
tion may fail to make us delighted with the ideal society of 
the object, or interested in its fate. In the company of Sir 
Thomas More, the admiration scarcely ever stands separate 
from the more kindly feelings ; it seems but to give the last 
emphasis to the inexpressible complacency with which we 
listen to him, converse with him, observe his movements, 
and follow him wherever he goes. If personally acquainted 
with such a man, we should, in absence from him, be 
incessantly haunted with a necessity and a passion to get 



CHARACTER OF MORE. 199 

near hirn. again; and should not only feel the most 
animated pleasure, but also, in spite of the contrast between 
our intellectual powers and his, should feel as if we had five 
times more sense than usual, when stimulated and supported 
by the vigour of a genius which seemed entirely to forget 
any comparison between itself and those around, which 
kindly lent itself to assist every one to think, and gladly 
aided any one to shine, while it had never once any other 
ambition than to diffuse happiness or impart instruction. 
The absence of every kind of selfishness, the matchless 
gaiety and good humour which accompanied his great 
talents, and his wonderful facility of using them, divested of 
the least timidity every one that approached him, except 
pretenders and villains. His manner of displaying his 
talents delighted his friends into such a total forgetfulness 
of fear, that only his exalted virtue could preserve to him 
that veneration which again his faeetiousness prevented 
from oppressing those who felt it. Perhaps there never 
was a person that possessed many various qualities in such 
perfect combination, as, in an equal degree with More, to 
make the effect of them all be felt in the operation of any 
one of them. His playful wit never put his severe virtu© 
and his wisdom out of recollection ; and at the same time it 
was acknowledged, that so imperial a virtue had never 
before been seen so much at its ease in the company of 
pleasantry and humorous fancy. The habitual influence, 
therefore, of his character, was a happy and most singular 
complexity of operation ; as he could exert, and did almost 
involuntarily exert, not in succession and alternation, but at 
one and the same time, the wit, the philosopher, and the 
Christian- 
Distinguished statesmen generally become what may be 
called technical characters ; the whole human being becomes 
shaped into an official thing, and nature's own man, with 
free faculties, and warm sentiments, and unconstrained 
manners, has disappeared. An established process regulates 
the creature into a mechanical agency ; the order of its 
manners is squared to the proper model, formed between 
the smooth complaisance of the courtier, and the assuming 
self-importance of the minister ; the whole train of thinking 
turns on measures of state, on councils, acts, debates, and 



200 LIVES OF ER1TISH STATESMEN. 

intrigues and the character of the court, the cabinet, and 
senate, sticks to the being most inseparably, even in the 
domestic circle, in visits to friends, and in country rambles. 
In More, on the contrary, the general natural man was 
always predominant above any artificial character of office. 
The variety of his interest, the animation of his sentiments, 
and the strength of his powers, would not suffer affairs of 
state to repress the living impulses of his mind, or reduce 
to a formality of action that elasticity which played in all 
directions with infinite freedom. Even in the transactions 
of office, it appears that his wit sometimes threw its sparkles 
through the gravity of the judge. In reading the lives 
of most other statesmen, we seem to be making a very 
unmeaning and unentertaining visit, to see them among 
their secretaries, or going to their councils, or at their 
levees, or seated in their robes ; in reading of More, it 
seems to be the statesman that makes a visit to us, in the 
dress of an ordinary person, with manners formed by no 
rule but kindness and good taste, talking on all subjects, 
casually suggested, with an easy vigour of sense, and no 
further reminding us of his station and its habits, than by 
the surprise now and then recurring on our own minds to 
recollect that so wonderfully free and pleasant a man is 
really a great officer of state , 

More's character derives some adventitious lustre, from 
comparison with the persons most conspicuous in the public 
affairs of England at that time. His being contemporary 
and intimately connected with Henry VIII., might seem as 
if intended to show in one view the two extremes of human 
nature. His modesty and disinterestedness contrast admi- 
rably with the proud, insatiable ambition of "Wolsey ; his 
independence and magnanimity with the courtly servility 
which it is impossible not to impute to the otherwise excel- 
lent Cranmer. 

Amidst the early display and fame of talents and learn- 
ing, his favourite wish was to become a monk, but was 
overruled by his father, who was earnest for his adopting 
the profession of the law. This at length he did, and with 
the greatest success, notwithstanding he continued to direct 
a large proportion of his studies to classical literature and 
to theology. At the age of twenty-three he entered the 



moee's lojfty iftegmty. 201 

House of Commons, in the latter part of the reign of 
Henry VII., in which situation his first exertion was little 
less than the hazard of his life, by an eloquent resistance to 
an iniquitous demand of money, made by this tyrant, and 
which the fears of the house would have silently yielded but 
for the courageous virtue of More, which roused them to 
refuse the grant. He was, however, compelled, in conse- 
quence, to exchange the bar for complete retirement ; but 
this only served to complete his knowledge, and mature his 
virtues, while the tenderest domestic relations occupied his 
affections, and all the time that could be spared from his 
studies. He returned to his practice at the accession of 
Henry VIII., whose favourite, after a little while, he very 
reluctantly became, and so continued for many years, not- 
withstanding that lofty integrity which never once made 
the smallest sacrifice of principle to the will of the monarch. 
After holding several important situations, he was con- 
strained to accept that of high-chancellor, in which he 
administered justice with a promptitude and a disinterest- 
edness beyond all former example, till the period of Henry's 
quarrel with the pope, respecting his divorce of the queen, 
and his marriage with Anna Boleyn. More foresaw that in 
his office of chancellor he should be compelled to an explicit 
opposition to the king, very dangerous to himself ; and by 
earnest request obtained the acceptance of his resignation. 
In prosecuting his determination relative to the marriage, 
throwing off in consequence the authority of Rome alto- 
gether, and ultimately assuming himself the supremacy of 
the English church, the tyrant required the approbation, by 
oath, of the chief persons in the state. Especially the 
approbation of More, though now but a private person, was 
of far greater importance to him than that of any other 
individual. He was aware that More was conscientiously 
unable to give this approbation, and knew well that nothing 
on earth could induce him to violate his conscience ; yet, 
after repeated attempts at persuasion, he angrily insisted on 
his taking the several oaths, summoned him before a council, 
and gave him time to deliberate in prison. After enduring 
with unalterable patience and cheerfulness the severities of 
a year's imprisonment in the Tower, he was brought to trial, 
condemned with the unhesitating haste which always dis- 



202 LIVES OE BRITISH STATESMEN - . 

tinguishes the creatures employed by a tyrant to elfect his 
revenge by some mockery of law, and with the same haste 
consigned to execution. Imagination cannot represent a 
scene more affecting than the interview of More with his 
favourite daughter, nor a character of more elevation, or 
even more novelty, than that most singular vivacity with 
which, in the hour of death, he crowned the calm fortitude 
which he had maintained through the whole of the last 
melancholy year of his life. Thus one of the noblest beings 
in the whole world was made a victim to the malice of a 
remorseless crowned savage, whom it is the infamy of the 
age and nation to have suffered to reign or to live.* 

* In a subsequent paper on Cayley's Memoirs of Sir Thomas 
More, Mr. Foster recurs to this subject, and dwells upon it with 
a beauty and force which strikingly exhibit the nice discrimina- 
tion and sound moral sense by which his intellect was distin- 
guished. The passage should be read in connexion with his 
remarks on the hilarity of Hume. 

" Some grave and pious persons have been inclined to censure 
this gaiety, as incongruous with the feelings appropriate to the 
solemn situation. We would observe, that though we were to 
admit as a general rule, that expressions of wit and pleasantry 
are unbecoming the last hour, yet Sir Thomas More may be 
justly considered as the exception. The constitution of his mind 
was so singular and so happy, that throughout his life his humour 
and wit were evidently, as a matter of fact, compatible, in almost 
all cases, with a general direction of his mind to serious and 
momentous subjects. His gaiety did not imply a dereliction, 
even for the moment, of the habitude of mind proper to a wise 
and conscientious man. It was an unquestionable matter of 
fact, that he could emit pleasantries and be seriously weighing 
in his mind an important point of equity or law, and could pass 
directly from the play of wit to the acts and the genuine spirit 
of devotion. And if he could at all other times maintain a 
vigorous exercise of serious thought and devout sentiment, 
unhurt by the gleaming of these lambent fires, there was no 
good reason why they might not gleam on the scaffold also. He 
had thousands of times before approached the Almighty, 
without finding, as he retired, that one of the faculties of his 
mind, one of the attributes of extraordinary and universal 
talent imparted to him by that Being was become extinct in 
consequence of pious emotions : and his last addresses to that 
Being could not be of a specifically different nature from the 
former ; they could only be one degree more solemn. He had 



MOEE S ADHERENCE TO POPERY. 203 

Sir Thomas More's constant adherence to the church of 
Roine was evinced by his writing against the Reformers in a 
strain of violence most uncongenial with his general cha- 
racter, by his superstitious discipline of a hair shirt and a 
knotted whip, by certain severities exercised on persons 
declaring against Popery, by his expressing in the inscrip- 
tion which he wrote for his tomb his hostility to heretics, 
and by his deliberate preference of death to yielding any 
sanction to a measure by which the English monarch arro- 
gated the ecclesiastical supremacy which had previously 
been acknowledged in the popes. In the earlier part of his 
life, however, he manifested a freedom of opinion which by 
no means threatened to grow into that bigotry, which in the 
latter part formed the only, but certainly very serious foil 
to so much excellence. In his " Utopia" he made no scruple 
to censure the corruptions and ridicule the lollies prevalent 
in the Roman church, and there can be no doubt that to a 
certain limited extent he would have zealously concurred in 
a plan of reform. Till the tumults attending the Reforma- 
tion excited him to wish that Christendom might be tran- 

before almost habitually thought of death, and most impressively 
realized it ; and still he had wit, and its soft lustre was to his 
friends but the more delightful for gilding so grave a contem- 
plation : well, he could only realize the awful event one degree 
more impressively, when he saw the apparatus, and was warned 
that this was the hour. As Protestants, we undoubtedly feel 
some defect of complacency, in viewing such an admirable 
display of heroic self-possession mingled with so much error ; 
but we are convinced that he was devoutly obedient to what he 
believed the will of God, that the contemplation of the death of 
Christ was the cause of his intrepidity, and that the errors of 
his faith were not incompatible with his interest in that sacrifice. 
" There is so little danger of any excessive indulgence of sallies 
of wit in the hour of death, that there is no need to discuss the 
question how far, as a rule applicable to good men in general, 
such vivacity as that of More would in that season comport with 
the Christian character ; but we are of opinion that it would 
fully comport in any case substantially resembling his ; in any 
case where the innocent and refined play of wit had been 
through life one of the most natural and unaffected operations 
of the mind, where it had never been felt to prevent or injure 
serious thinking and pious feeling, and where it mingled with 
the clear indications of a real Christian magnanimity in death." 



204 LIVES Or EKITISH STATESMEN. 

quillized by a paramount authority in religion, bis veneration 
for the pope nad by no means gone the length of ascribing 
an absolute unlimited authority in religious matters. At all 
times he held the decrees of general councils in higher 
respect than those of the papal court ; and when Henry 
VIII. was about to publish the famous book which procured 
him and all his successors the title of Defender of the Faith, 
More vainly remonstrated with him against the extravagant 
terms in which that book set forth the pope's authority. 

He probably was not himself aware how firmly the popish 
superstitions had taken hold of his mind, till they were 
attacked by Luther; and then he found them become so 
sacred in his opinion, that he deliberately avowed, and with 
unquestionable sincerity, in his "Apology," that he deemed 
heretics worse than robbers and murderers. And since his 
philosophy had fallen far short of admitting the principle that 
human authority has no right to punish modes of faith, he 
considered heretics as amenable to the tribunals of the state, 
and the magistrate bound to prosecute the enemies of God. 
The progress of his mind to bigotry and persecution is ex- 
plained by Mr. Macdiarmid with much intelligence, and with 
the utmost candour toward the admirable person whom he 
is painfully forced to accuse. 

It is impossible now to ascertain how far More was prac- 
tically a persecutor. If it were possible, we should go into 
the inquiry with a strong apprehension of finding, that he 
did in some measure contribute to the rigorous execution of 
the laws enacted, or brought into more decisive operation 
against the Protestants, during part of the detestable reign 
in which it was his fate to live. It is unquestionable how- 
ever that some of the Protestant writers have greatly 
exceeded the truth, in charging him with numerous acts of 
direct personal cruelty in the exercise of his power. They 
have used expressions from which it might almost be infer- 
red, that one of his ordinary methods against Protestants 
was the infliction of corporal suffering. But we have his 
own express affirmation, which we consider as of higher 
authority than all other testimony, that he had recourse to 
personal violence on account of the declared renunciation of 
Popery only in two instances, that of a boy of his household, 
and that of a man who was guilty of indecent outrages on 



INTOLEKAXCE OF THE EEEOEMEES. 205 

persons, particularly on women, attending" the mass. These f 
two lie caused to be " stripped^" he says, but not so much, 
he affirms, as to cause tnem any lasting pain or injury. / 
Without however proceeding the odious length that has ' 
been most unjustly imputed to him, he might, in his high 
official capacity of chancellor and president of the Star- 
chamber, exercise much legal intolerance ; and from such a 
view we can only join with all good and wise men in 
lamenting the deplorable darkness and perversity of human 
reason, which both in that and later times so obstinately 
refused to perceive or acknowledge, that religious opinions 
are entirely beyond the jurisdiction of human authority. 
"What is most humiliating of all, — many of the Reformers 
themselves, though asserting liberty of opinion in their dis- 
sent from the church of Rome, could not comprehend that 
other men had the very same right to dissent from them. 
The larger portion of the history of the Reformed churches 
has been the history of Popish intolerance, variously modi- 
fied indeed, in its action, by national and local character, 
and by the particular temper of leading individuals, but well 
furnished with its conclaves, its holy offices, its political 
intrigues, its bulls, its dungeons, and even its executioners, 
and operating rather on a reduced scale of power, than with 
any mitigation of malignity. All this, say the Protestants, 
is very arrogant and impious in the Papal church ; but the 
Papal church is erroneous, and the Papal church is not ours : 
— of what inestimable utility, in the true church, would be 
a modified exercise of that high authority, which is indeed 
so wrong and pernicious in the corrupt one ; it were very 
unfortunate to lose entirely so grand an advantage gained 
over the human mind by ecclesiastical authority ; certainly 
it has been very improperly acquired and used by the 
church that gained it, but oeing gained, might it not become 
a holy thing in the hands of holy men ? — the conqueror was 
no doubt guilty of ambition and injustice, but his successors 
who are of course wise and beneficent, may do much more 
good by retaining the subjugated provinces and the spoils, 
than by restoring liberty and property. Can the power be 
too great, when the only object to which it is possible for it 
ever to be applied in our hands is the support of the genuine 
cause of Grod ? When strong measures have been employed 






203 LIVES OF BRITISH STATESMEN. 

to promote and establish error, are we not in duty called 
upon to use means equally strong to maintain the truth ? 
Sentiments of this kind are unhappily felt and expressed by 
bigots, not only in all establishments, but in all sects, how- 
ever manifestly incompatible with their primary and funda- 
mental principles. 

As long as the Popish establishment stands, it will have 
the effect, not only of setting an example, venerable by age, 
of ecclesiastical dominion, but of continually suggesting how 
far it might be carried ; and it will tend to prevent any set 
of men from ever suspecting themselves of intolerance, so 
long as they stop short of the downright tyranny which that 
church has always practised, and prevent them from cor- 
dially allowing an absolute freedom of thought and pro- 
fession, satisfied with just so much authority over men's 
religious opinions as argument, eloquence, and virtue can 
maintain. On account of this influence, as well as of the 
immediate noxiousness of the Papal dominion wherever it 
exists, we have fervently to wish for the downfall of all its 
establishments, and humbly to pray, that the movements of 
the present awful crisis may happily be made so far benefi- 
cial as to result in their final demolition. We come back 
to the book before us by observing, that the detestable 
quality of religious, and especially Popish bigotry, is hardly 
more conspicuous in the exhibitions of Smithfield and St. 
Bartholomew, than in the fact of its having sometimes filled 
with virulence such an otherwise almost angelic being as 
Sir Thomas More. 

"We must be more brief in our notice of the remaining 
lives. That of Cecil, Lord Burleigh, presents to our view 
beyond all doubt the most useful minister that ever managed 
the affairs of our country. He held the important station 
during very nearly the whole reign of Elizabeth ; and we 
shall not allow it to constitute any impeachment of either 
our loyalty or gallantry, that we have wished, while reading 
the account of his life, that he had been the monarch instead 
of our famous queen. It is impossible to say what share of 
the better part of her fame was owing to him, but we are 
inclined to think, that if we could make out an estimate of 
that reign, wanting all the good which resulted from just so 
much wisdom and moderation as Cecil possessed, beyond 



Elizabeth's co^eidekce if cecil. 207 

any other statesman that could have been employed, and 
including all the evil which no other minister would have 
prevented, we should rifle that splendid period of more than 
half its honours. A very considerable proportion of his 
political labour was a contest with his sovereign, a contest 
with caprice, with superstition, with bigotry, and with the 
prodigality of favouritism. This would no doubt reflect 
great honour on the sovereign who could, notwithstanding, 
retain in her favour and service so upright a minister, if the 
fact had not been, that his services were just as indispen- 
sable to her government as those of a cook or postillion 
were to her personal accommodation. She had the sense to 
be convinced, and the prudence to act on her conviction, 
that no other man in her dominions could so happily direct 
her aifairs through the extreme dangers of that memorable 
period. Though, therefore, she would sometimes treat him 
with the meanest injustice, contriving to throw on him the 
odium of any dishonourable or unpopular action of her own, 
and would occasionally make him the object, like the rest of 
her ministers, of her abusive petulance, addressing him with 
the titles of " old fool," " miscreant," and " coward," yet 
she made him always her most confidential counsellor, zeal- 
ously defended him against his enemies, refused his urgent 
solicitation, when advanced far in life, to be allowed to retire 
from his office, and anxiously visited his sick room in the 
concluding period of his life, and not remote from the close 
of her own. 

Excepting one or two sublime examples in the Jewish 
history, Sir Thomas More was probably the only great 
statesman that ever rose to eminence and power without 
ambition. Though Cecil's virtue could descend to no base 
expedients for advancement, he was from his early youth of 
a very aspiring disposition ; and certainly, if the most extra- 
ordinary industry and attainments could merit distinction 
and honourable employment, no young man ever had 
superior claims. He very soon drew the attention of the 
court, obtained the utmost that his ambition could desire, 
and held a ministerial office probably a greater number of 
years than any other man in our history. "With the excep- 
tion of a very few objectionable or doubtful circumstances, 
it seems impossible to use language too strong in praise of 



208 LITES 0E BRITISH STATESMEN. 

this admirable minister. No statesman since his time has 
given the nation, after long experience of his conduct, such 
a profound, complacent feeling of being safe. The idea 
which gradually came to be entertained of him was almost 
that of a being not needing sleep or recreation, always 
active by an invincible necessity, not subject to any caprices 
of temper nor obscurations of understanding, created and 
endowed to live for the state and for no other purpose, and 
so far above all meanness of self-interest as to make it not 
at all worth while to examine his conduct ; and after being 
minister several times ten years, he seemed, in the appre- 
hension of the people, to have outlived any danger of being 
removed from his office by death. If any unexpected 
public event happened in England or the surrounding 
countries, it was felt to be certain that the faithful old 
sentinel would be the first to see it, and would descry and 
avert any danger it might involve. If parties threatened to 
run high, it was recollected that Cecil's discernment and 
impartiality would calmly judge and balance their respective 
principles and merits, and that his incomparable powers of 
conciliation had already quieted or moderated many a 
political war. If a new man was raised to some important 
station, it was well-known that Cecil, in his appointments 
and recommendations, trampled on all pretensions but those 
of personal qualification. If the queen's favourites were 
given to wild courses, and seemed to endanger the sobriety 
of her government, it was not doubted that Cecil would keep 
a vigilant eye on their proceedings, and would dare, if it 
should become necessary, even to admonish her majesty on 
the subject. If a tax was imposed, it was relied on that the 
careful and frugal minister would not have sanctioned it 
without an indispensable necessity. If a negotiation was 
carried on with foreign states, it was quite a certain thing 
that Cecil would neither provoke them nor cringe to them, 
would sacrifice no national advantage either through pride 
or meanness. And if a military expedition was to be 
equipped, it was not a matter to be doubted that some just 
and important object was to be gained at the smallest 
possible hazard and expense. Such a man was of necessity 
violently hated by every party and every individual in con- 
stant succession, that had any mean projects of self-interest 



Cecil's moderate policy. 209 

to prosecute at the expense of the public welfare ; but the 
bulk of the nation must have wished centuries of life, if it 
had been possible, to the incomparable minister. The 
character of his understanding was that of vast compre- 
hension, which could view the most complicated system of 
concerns in all its parts, and in due proportion, at once ; 
and therefore saw how to promote the advantage of the 
whole by the expedients devised for any particular part. 
The character of his political temper, if we may so express 
it, was a vigorous moderation, prompt and resolute in its 
measures, and yet seeking to accomplish the end by the 
most temperate means and in the quietest manner. 
Moderation was conspicuous in the general scope and 
direction of his designs, as well as in the manner of effect- 
ing each particular object. He was the invariable opponent 
of war, which he, unaccountably, judged an expedient very 
rarely necessary even in the most turbulent times, and of 
which he most perfectly beheld the vile and hideous 
features through the romantic, dazzling kind of heroism so 
much in vogue in those enterprising times. But the 
greatest and most continued efforts of his moderate policy 
were made in the endeavour to preserve to the people some 
slight shadow of religious liberty, in opposition to the half 
popish queen, and a most bigoted and persecuting hierarchy, 
that incessantly counteracted his liberal schemes. 

The boasted reign of Elizabeth was a period of great 
barbarism, as far as related to the royal and episcopal 
notions of the rights of conscience, and of great cruelty in 
the practical administration of the religious department. 
Cecil remonstrated in a spirited manner against the pro- 
ceedings of the prelates, which he charged with being nearly 
the same as those of the Inquisition; but when he 
attempted to interpose his official authority in defence of 
the victims of their intolerance, he found they had so 
entirely the approbation of the queen, that they would set 
his remonstrances and interposition at defiance. She was a 
bigoted devotee to various popish superstitions, was passion- 
ately fond of gaudy and childish ceremonials in the ecclesi- 
astical institutions, was the bitter enemy of every thing like 
real liberty of religious opinion, and, in short, was alto- 
gether unworthy of being, where circumstances had placed 

P 



210 LIVES OF BE1TISH STATESMEN. 

her, at the head of the Protestant cause. The accident of 
her being placed in this distinguished situation, and being 
consequently hated and conspired against by all the Catholic 
governments, was the grand security for the animated 
loyalty of her Protestant subjects ; and even the Puritans, 
towards whom the measures of her reign symbolized a good 
deal with the plagues of Egypt, were so desperate of any 
other defence against the horrors of a real Popish dominion 
and persecution, that they entered into associations for the 
protection of her person and government. Their loyalty, 
therefore, was obviously in a great degree self-interested ; 
but the following passage, among very many others of a 
similar kind that might be extracted, will tend to show that 
it was also in no small degree generous and gratuitous. 
Away then with the charge of faction and turbulence which 
has been made against this venerable class of sufferers, 
unless the charge of faction is also to be applied to the 
principle of returning good for evil. 

" Elizabeth, holding very different sentiments from these, not 
only prescribed peculiar forms for the worship of her people, but 
was determined that they should use no other. The puritans, 
on the other hand, without calling her right in question, 
objected to the forms which she had appointed, because they 
had been previously employed in the Popish worship, as mystical 
symbols, and were associated in the minds of the people with 
the grossest superstitions. They resolved, therefore, that no 
worldly considerations should induce them to assume what they 
accounted appendages of idolatry ; while the queen, on her part, 
prepared to employ all her authority in support of this exertion 
of her supremacy. 

" Finding that her council, the ablest and wisest council that 
England ever saw, were decidedly averse to measures which 
threatened to involve the nation in the most dangerous dissen- 
sions, she resolved to effect her purpose by means of the bishops, 
particularly Archbishop Parker, who readily and zealously 
entered into her views. The severities to which these now pro- 
ceeded, were only surpassed by the frivolity of the pretences 
under which they were exercised. "While the fervent attach- 
ment to the use of surplices, corner-caps, tippets, the cross in 
baptism, and the ring in marriage, were considered as the distin- 
guishing characteristics of a Christian, any dislike to these forms, 
which were allowed to be in themselves indifferent, was accounted 
a sufficient crime to subject the most learned and pious clergy- 



Cecil's wonderful industry. 211 

man to imprisonment and exile ; or, as a mitigated punishment, 
to be turned out of his living, and with his family consigned to 
indigence. The most pernicious effects necessarily flowed from 
these excesses. While the church was weakened by the loss of 
a large portion of her most able divines, and degraded by the 
introduction of a great number of men who could barely read 
the prayer-book, and write their own names, without even 
pretending to preach, the people began everywhere to collect 
round their expelled teachers, and to form conventicles apart 
from the Establishment. Yet these bad consequences only set 
the queen and her bishops upon obtaining new statutes to reach 
the refractory ; and at length, even the laity were brought 
within their grasp, by an act which provided that non-attend- 
ance at public worship, in the parish churches, should be punished 
with imprisonment, banishment, and if the exile returned, with 
death. An arbitrary commission was appointed with full powers 
to bring all religious offenders to punishment ; and as any 
resistance to the injunctions of the queen, as supreme head of 
the church, was at length construed into sedition and treason, 
many subjects, of unquestioned loyalty, were imprisoned, 
banished, and even executed." — P. 156. 

There could be no hazard in affirming, that a man com- 
bining greater industry with greater powers of execution, 
never lived since the beginning of time. And when it is 
considered through what a very long period these exertions 
were maintained, and that for the most part they were most 
judiciously directed to the public good, we may be allowed 
to dwell with high complacency on this great character, 
notwithstanding the censure which we think justly due to 
the magnificence of his private establishment, and the repro- 
bation deserved by one or two iniquitous modes of taxation 
which he suggested to Elizabeth. And though it was 
certainly very unnecessary, except to his ambition, for him 
to occupy so vastly wide a sphere of official employment, 
and it might have been more truly patriotic to have en- 
deavoured to introduce other men of merit into some of the 
departments, both in order to give them a share of the 
deserved distinction, and to qualify them to serve the nation 
after death should have closed his own labours, yet we would 
earnestly press this wonderful example of industry, as a 
pattern and a monition, on the consciences of many worthy 
people who may applaud themselves for having passed a 
busy week, in virtue of about so much real application as 

p 2 



212 LTYES OF BEITISH STATESMEN - . 

would have been compressed into less than half a day of our 
indefatigable statesman. 

Notwithstanding the rigorous occupation of his time and 
faculties by the business of the government, we are informed 
that he could lay aside all the formality of the statesman in 
the company of his select friends, and in amusing himself 
with his children and grandchildren. We are gratified by 
all the indications that religion had a habitual influence on 
his mind ; and his maxim, given in the first sentence of the 
following quotation, will furnish the most dignified explana- 
tion of the principle which secured the general rectitude of 
his own useful and admirable life. 

11 It was usual with him to say that he would never trust any 
man but of sound religion, for he that was false to God would 
never be true to man. From his speeches and discourses 
we are led to conclude that his religious sentiments had a 
powerful effect in confirming his fortitude amidst the perilous 
circumstances with which he was often surrounded. At the 
awful period when Philip was preparing his Armada, and when 
the utter destruction of the English government was confidently 
expected abroad and greatly dreaded at home, Burleigh appeared 
uniformly collected and resolute ; and when the mighty prepara- 
tions of the Spaniards were spoken of in his presence with 
apprehension, he only replied with firmness, ( They shall do no 
more than God will suffer them.' The strictness of bis morals 
corresponded with his religious professions ; nor could his 
enemies, who severely scrutinized his most indifferent actions, 
impute to him even the vices peculiarly incident to his rank." — 
P. 245. 

Devout references to the Deity might not be of ordinary 
occurrence among ministers of state of that day : the more 
extensive prevalence of sincere piety among the great in the 
present times, must be the cause that we now so very 
frequently hear our statesmen, in adverting to dangers of a 
similar kind, utter with true devotional solemnity such 
reflections as that expressed by Cecil on occasion of the 
Armada. 

The next life is that of "Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, 
and it is the longest and most important of the series. It 
is evidently the result of severe thought, and very diligent 
research; and to us it appears to be written with the utmost 
impartiality that is possible to any man who really holds 



WEtfTWOETH, EAEL OE STEAEEOED. 213 

certain decided principles relative to the right and wrong 
of governments. "We can perceive in the writer no trace of 
the demagogue or partisan ; the amplest justice is done to 
the talents of the distinguished person, and in several 
points his conduct is liberally applauded for integrity; 
while the very fair advantage is given him throughout of 
being his own evidence and advocate, as his letters and 
despatches are taken as the principal authority. This life is 
a most interesting piece of composition, in which the 
account of an extraordinary individual is very dexterously 
managed to combine and animate various general sketches 
of the affairs of the most memorable period of our history. 
The narration of Strafford's active political career, which 
commenced early in his life, is preceded by a rapid but very 
able and luminous statement of the contest which had been 
zealously maintained, through several ages, between the 
respective claims of the monarch and the people ; which 
great contest, as he clearly shows, was precipitated very 
fast towards a decision, at the period when Strafford entered 
on the public stage. The preceding sovereigns, and by no 
means less than the rest James's immediate predecessor, 
had held a very magnificent language on the subject of 
the royal power and prerogatives; but Elizabeth took 
care to avoid the necessity of bringing the obnoxious ques- 
tion to issue in the most dangerous form of large demands 
of money. Her extreme economy in the public expendi- 
ture, her admired talents, the unequalled policy of her 
great minister, her being the chief of the Protestant cause, 
and the influence which her sex maintained on the chival- 
rous part of the nation, had all concurred to secure for her 
a tolerance of the arrogant pretensions which she so pru- 
dently forebore to follow up into a complete practical 
assertion. It was not within the capacity of James to 
understand, that the nation must be greatly transformed if 
it could endure the same language, even though combined 
with the same practical forbearance, from a stranger, of the 
slenderest endowments, of prodigal and low habits, sus- 
pected of Popery, and governed by such a favourite as the 
infamous Buckingham. But he was resolved that they 
should not only hear the loftiest strains of the jus divinum, 
but should be made to acquiesce in all the modes of verify- 



214 LIVES Or BRITISH STATESMEN. 

ing it on their purses, their creeds, and their persons. He 
was indeed compelled to observe the popular formality of 
calling parliaments; but he revenged himself by stout 
though laconic lectures to them on passive obedience, by 
insults, by declarations of their futility, by peremptory 
demands of money, and by petulant orders of dissolution. 
This was the state of things at the time that Strafford, a 
young gentleman of large fortune, of very high spirit, of 
powerful talents, and by no means devoid of all good 
qualities, entered into parliament; and it required but a 
short time to make him very prominent among the leaders 
of the popular cause, to the support of which none of his 
contemporaries brought more courage, or more eloquence. 
He entered so fully into the arguments of this cause as to 
deprive himself, if he should desert it, of all apology 
on the ground of juvenile rashness and inconsideration. 
It was of course not long before so formidable an opponent 
received overtures from Buckingham, in behalf of himself 
and the court which he ruled. What surprise would be 
felt by any reader who should not have lived long enough 
to know how these matters regularly go, to find that these 
overtures were received and replied to with the greatest 
possible politeness by Strafford, though he had a thousand 
times, within a few preceding months, pronounced the man 
by whom they were made to be the greatest miscreant in 
Europe, and to be intent on such designs as every man ot 
virtue ought to oppose, even to the hazard of his life ! He 
instantly placed himself in the attitude of patient waiting, 
and in part payment of the price of the good things he 
was going to receive, began, in parliament, to endeavour to 
moderate the tone of the popular party ; though most 
zealous for their great cause, he was anxious they should 
not prosecute it in the spirit and language of 'faction. Our 
benevolent sympathy was extremely hurt to find, that this 
virtuous patriot was deceived and insulted by Buckingham, 
who on second thoughts, had determined to do without him. 
It then beeame proper to discover again, that no energy of 
opposition in parliament could be too vehement against the 
designs of the favourite and the king. 

That king was Charles I., who having made a long and 
very strenuous effort to subdue the people and the parlia- 



steaefoed's deyotedxess to chaeles I. 215 

ment to Lis arbitrary government by authority and intimi- 
dation, was induced again to try the expedient of converting 
some of the boldest of the refractory into friends by means 
of honours and emoluments. He was instantly successful 
with Strafford, who accepted a peerage, and the presidency 
of the Council of York ; and became, and continued to the 
end of his life, the most faithful and devoted servant of the 
king, and of his despotic S}^stem of government. He might 
seem to have felt an almost enthusiastic passion for despotism 
in the abstract, independently of any partiality for the parti- 
cular person who was to exercise it. After a few years of 
his administration as viceroy of Ireland, he exulted to de- 
clare, that in that country the king was as absolute as any 
monarch in the whole world. And when, after the very 
long series of struggles between Charles and the people, 
the question was coming rapidly to the last fatal arbitre- 
ment, he urged the king to the prompt adoption of the 
most vigorous and decisive measures ; and he was mortified 
almost to distraction when he saw him, notwithstanding 
this energetic advice, falling into a wavering and timid 
policy. His own character and measures, indeed, had 
always been distinguished by an extraordinary and almost 
preternatural vigour. His energy and fortitude did not 
desert him, even when at length he found himself falling 
under the power and vengeance of that irresistible popular 
spirit which embodied its determined force and hostility in 
the Long Parliament, aided with respect to Strafford, by the 
hatred and court influence of the queen. He maintained 
the most graceful and dignified firmness on the scaffold, to 
which he was consigned in the result of the most memorable 
trial, except that of his royal master, in the records of our 
history ; a trial in which a perversion of law was made the 
expedient for accomplishing what was deemed a point of 
moral justice not formally provided for by law. As in all 
such cases, the bad effect became conspicuous, as Mr. 
Macdiarmid observes, in the admiration which the heroic 
sufferer excited in his death ; whereas, if he had only been 
doomed, as he did well deserve, and would have been felt to 
deserve, to perpetual imprisonment or exile, his name and 
character would have sunk down quietly to their proper 
level, and he would simply have been recollected as one of 



216 LIYES OF BEITISH STATESMEN. 

the many able unprincipled men, who have chosen to identify 
their fame with that of the despots of whom they have con- 
sented to be the tools. 

The lives of Strafford and Clarendon furnish a very wide 
field for observation ; but it is a beaten field, and we have 
really left ourselves no room for repeating those political 
and moral reflections which ought to be familiar to every 
Englishman. And besides, our situation is somewhat 
invidious with regard to one great subject, which is un- 
avoidably made prominent in almost every page of these 
two lives. By the principles of our undertaking, we are 
pledged not to advance any opinions on the grand contro- 
versy between the religious establishment of our country 
and the dissenters from its communion ; — or more precisely, 
we are engaged to avoid discussing the abstract propriety of 
an establishment, and also the propriety of that form of 
establishment now existing in the country. These are 
questions, it is true, quite distinct from the conduct of the 
church, or any of its distinguished members, as political 
agents in the transactions of a history. Viewed in this 
light, their operations, their influence, their virtues, or their 
vices, are just as fair subjects of observation as those of 
the eminent dissenters, or any other of the agents, involved 
in our national history. But it is not quite certain that we 
can exercise our right to this undoubted extent without 
giving considerable offence. Even at this liberal period, 
when religious churchmen and dissenters regard each other 
much more as brethren, and much less as even rivals, there 
are some whom it would be hard to avoid offending, and in 
whose opinion we should scarcely seem to preserve our 
pledged neutrality, while condemning the violent and fatal 
intolerance of the church during the reigns of the Jameses 
and the Charleses, though it be evidently impossible to 
discuss the merits, or even narrate the events, of those 
reigns without it. 



217 



MEMOIES OE SIR THOMAS MOEE. 

Memoirs of Sir Thomas More, with a new Translation of his 
Utopia, his History of King Eichard III., and his Latin Poems. 
By Arthur Cayley, the younger, Esq. 2 vols., 4to., 1808. 

As extended article in our two last numbers,* occupied, for 
the greater part, by Sir Thomas More, forbids us to yield to 
the temptation of assigning more than a very few pages to him 
in our notice of the present voluminous work. Yet, as readers 
of political biography, we might well be forgiven, in consi- 
deration of the moral dreariness of the subject in general, 
for lingering long in sight of a statesman who never once 
slighted the dictates of conscience, nor in any concern forgot 
his accountableness to the Governor of the universe. Some- 
where in the map of the world, we remember to have observed 
a promontory called Cape Earewell, and to have imagined to 
ourselves the pensiveness with which the adventurers who 
named it so, might be supposed to have looked on it, while 
departing into the barren, treacherous waste of the wide sea, 
which they might traverse thousands of miles before their 
sight would again rest on a grove or a declivity green with 
grass. In taking leave of a political character like More, 
who can tell the extent of historical research, or the pro- 
tracted duration of future waiting, before we come to such 
another ! 

The present author has obtained the greater part of his 
materials necessarily from the same books as Mr. Macdiar- 
mid, making besides a very ample use of More's English 
works, a more ample use indeed than could be allowed if 
they were not become very scarce. The narration is too 
much interrupted and diversified by letters, and by extracts 
from More's poetry, to assume any thing of the formal 
style of history ; it is very correctly designated by the title 
of memoirs. The parts which are in Sir Thomas's own 
words are perhaps the most interesting, the simplicity of the 
antique expression seeming to give stronger effect to the 

* Macdiarmid's " Lives of British Statesmen." 



218 MEMOIRS OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 

animation and significance which inspirit every sentence ; 
just as a person of ninety or a hundred years old, whose 
manners should he lively, and whose conversation should 
glow and glitter with fancy, and wit, and keen intelligence, 
if such a person were to he found, would at many seasons 
have attractions for us, with which those of the sprightliest 
and fairest of our young acquaintance could maintain no 
competition. By means of these selections from More's 
letters and other prose writings, and of a great number of 
anecdotes agreeably told, together with very characteristic 
and curious pieces of verse, Mr. Cayley has certainly given 
a striking exhibition of this memorable person, His obser- 
vations are generally pertinent ; and his applause of Sir 
Thomas, which in passing on we thought rather too un- 
qualified in one or two instances, we found reduced nearly 
to the standard of justice at the conclusion, by a strong 
censure of the intolerant spirit which dimmed the lustre of 
his character in his conduct .toward the Protestants. 

"We are however by no means satisfied with the very 
slight manner in which the biographer has disposed of the 
charges of Strype and Burnet : who very possibly had too 
little susceptibility to the rare and admirable parts of More's 
character, but whose respectable authority, as historians, 
demanded some accurate investigation of their accusatory 
statements, from a biographer who had taken up his work 
on so wide a scale. His quotation from More's Apology, 
denying his having employed torture, is decisive as far as it 
goes ; but surely Mr. Cayley did not think it was to stand 
as a comprehensive denial of all the facts alleged by the 
Protestant historians. Sir Thomas himself, when represent- 
ing before the court appointed to examine him, the injustice 
of being reduced to an explicit declaration for or against the 
king's ecclesiastical supremacy, and when shrewdly remind- 
ed by the secretary that he himself in his judicial office had 
deemed it right to reduce persons suspected of what was 
called heresy to as severe an alternative, instantly admitted 
the fact, by remarking between the two cases a difference, 
which he considered as justifying his conduct ; and this 
admission, and the justification, will serve to render not im- 
probable too many of the charges against him. We are 
not pretending that many readers would now feel any very 



DETECTS OE MR. CAYLEV's MEMOIES. 219 

deep concern in having an accurate proof made out of all 
the official proceedings against Protestantism, of an indivi- 
dual, however distinguished in his time, whose influence on 
the state of the Christian church has ceased for centuries ; 
but the biographer must not be permitted to take this com- 
parative indifference, respecting the accurate proof of remote 
facts, as a license for indolence, unless he will have the 
discretion at the same time to confine his book to a less 
ostentatious magnitude. When he determines to take all 
possible advantages of his subject, it can never be fair to 
avoid its difficulties. If he is content to collect and digest 
within very moderate limits such facts as confessedly need 
no very laborious research, it is very well ; but when he 
comes forth with 300 quarto pages of memoirs, and appends 
400 more reprinted and translated from the works of the 
person of whom he writes, it would be a contempt of literary 
justice that he should be allowed to make up his own part 
of the publication entirely of the facts most easily found, 
with very large pieces of extract, which only needed to be 
transcribed, and indulgently excuse himself from any dis- 
quisitions, however important to the character in question, 
that require historical investigation. "When he chooses his 
work shall have the benefit, in bulk and price, of such a 
mass of appendix that costs him so little, we surely have a 
right to insist that what he really does himself shall be done 
in the most finished style of workmanship. Such a stately 
publication, concerning an individual, should not, except 
through a total deficiency of records, have left the most 
important part of his history involved in nearly all its 
former uncertainty. "While therefore we are considerably 
gratified by the memoirs, as telling us a great many facts 
concerning a most rare character, but facts, for the most part, 
rather easily collected by the biographer, we must tax Mr. Cay- 
ley with some degree of indolence, whether regarded as an 
investigator of historic truth, or the apologist of the illus- 
trious statesman. 

If we accuse him of indolence, we do not charge him with 
any perversion, or with servility to any spirit of party, as a 
narrator and judge. He displays a respectable freedom of 
thought, and forms, we think, in general, just estimates of 
the men and things brought in his view in the course of his 



220 MEMOIBS OE SIR THOMAS MOEE. 

work. "We were pleased particularly with the remarks on 
the character and conduct of Erasmus, at the close of the 
memoirs of More, whom he survived only about a year. The 
friendship between these illustrious rivals in literature, wit, 
and celebrity, appears to have been that of two men, each of 
whom knew that his friend, if lost, could never be replaced 
by his equal. Fine portraits of both, with short fac-similes 
of their hand- writing, are placed as frontispieces to these 
volumes. 

The youth of Sir Thomas threw out luxuriantly the blos- 
soms of that virtue, wit, and genius, in which he was 
destined to excel all his English contemporaries. From his 
English works Mr. Cayley has given some ingenious poetical 
devices, written when he was a boy, for a series of emble- 
matical pictures, and a very long copy of excessively 
humourous verses, reciting the story of a sheriff's officer, 
who assumed the guise of a friar, in order to gain access to 
apprehend a man who was slyly acting the sick recluse on 
account of his debts, which false friar incurred the most 
ludicrously lamentable disasters in attempting to execute 
his purpose. 

"We have before given a slight sketch of the successive 
events of the life of our admirable wit and statesman, and 
shall therefore do little more here than extract a few anec- 
dotes and one of his letters. 

" His second wife appears from the following anecdote to have 
been less a philosopher than himself on the occasion of his 
quitting his high office. During his chancellorship, one of More's 
attendants had been in the habit, after the church service was 
over, of going to his lady's pew to inform her when the chancel- 
lor was gone. The first holiday after the resignation of his office, 
Sir Thomas came to the pew himself, and making a low bow, 
said, Madam, my lord is gone. His lady at first imagined this to 
be one of his jests, and took little notice of it ; but when he in- 
formed her seriously that he had resigned the seal, she was in a 
passion. The facetious knight called his daughters, and asked if 
they could espy no fault in their mother's appearance. Being 
answered in the negative, he said, 'Do ye not perceive that her 
nose standeth awry 1 ' 

" The good lady is reported to have exclaimed, with her usual 
worldly feeling on this occasion, ' Tilly vally, what will you do, 
Mr. More 1 will you sit and make goslings in the ashes ? it is 
better to rule than be ruled.'" — Vol I., p. 122. 



1 



ANECDOTES OE MOEE. 221 

" While he was sitting one day in his hall, a beggar came to 
complain to him that Lady More detained a little dog that be- 
longed to him. The chancellor sent for his lady and ordered her 
to bring the dog with her. He took it into his hands, and 
placing Lady More at the upper end of the hall, desired the beggar 
to stand at the lower end. I sit here, he said, to do every one 
justice ; and he desired each of them to call the dog. The little 
favourite immediately forsook his new mistress and ran to the 
beggar ; upon which Lady More was compelled to indulge her 
partiality by purchasing the animal." — Vol. L, p. 114. 

" During his chancellorship, he had made a decree against 
Parnell at the suit of Yaughan, and was now in his adversity 
accused of having received a gilt cup, as a bribe, of Yaughan's 
wife. Being summoned before the council, More gravely con- 
fessed that ' forasmuch as that cup was, long after the aforesaid 
decree, brought him for a new years gift, he, upon the importu- 
nate pressing upon him thereof, of courtesy refused not to take 
it.' Here Lord Wiltshire, Anna Boleyn's father, exclaimed in 
triumph, ' Lo, did I not tell ye, my lords, that ye should find 
this matter true.' More desired their lordships 'as they had 
courteously heard him tell one part of his tale, that they would 
vouchsafe of their honours indifferently to hear the other.' He 
then declared, that although he had indeed with much difficulty 
received the cup, yet immediately thereupon he caused his butler 
to fill it with wine, and he drank to the lady. When she had 
pledged him, he gave her the cup again, that she might give it 
to her husband as a new-year's gift from him ; and at his urgent 
request, though much against her will, she at last received it. 
Yaughan's wife, and other witnesses present, confirmed his 
statement." — Yol. I., p. 252. 

" When one of the family of Manners said to More, ' honores 
mutant Mores,' the knight readily retorted on him, that it was 
true in English, for then it applied to Manners. 

" When a debtor to the knight, on being asked to discharge his 
claim, expiated on the uncertainty of this life, and the inutility 
of money in the grave, concluding pompously memento morieris, 
More answered him, memento Mori ceris. 

" When one of his friends brought More an ill- written work, 
to receive his opinion of it previously to its publication, the 
knight told him gravely 'it would be better in verse.' The man 
took home his book, versified it, and brought it again to More. 
1 Yea, marry,' said the knight, l now it is somewhat, for now it is 
rhyme ; before, it was neither rhyme nor reason.' "—Yol. L, p. 247. 

"After his condemnation, a light-headed courtier, as More's 
great-grandson calls him, having come to the knight, not to talk 
of serious maiters,h\it to urge him to change his mind, Sir Thomas, 



222 



MEMOIES OF SIR THOMAS MOEE. 



wearied by his impertinence and importunity, a last replied, I 
have changed it. The report of this soon reached the king, and 
More was commanded to explain himself. The knight now re- 
buked the courtier for troubling his majesty with what he spoke 
in jest ; his meaning he said was, that whereas he proposed to 
have been shaved, that he might appear as usual at his execu- 
tion ; he had now changed his mind, and his beard should share 
the fate of his head."— Vol. I, p. 229. 

After reading these, and a great many more such instances 
of humour and gaiety,— after- being told that his jocularity 
accompanied him in the gravest official situations and en- 
gagements, and his wit in the most awful ones, as it vividly 
darted out its beams at the sight of the executioner and the 
axe ; in short, that he uttered pleasantries almost as 
naturally and involuntarily as he breathed, — a person will 
be entirely unable to comprehend, unless he reads the whole 
account of the character, how this very same man should, with 
all the same natural grace and ease, utter and write expres- 
sions which no one can read without tears ; how the man, who 
but two minutes since vanquished the gravity of the 
austerest auditor with his arch turns and gay images, can 
now without an effort, and with the most captivating and 
irresistible expression of simplicity and sincerity, be making 
the most devout and affecting references to death and the 
Sovereign Judge. JSTo character so exquisitely compounded 
of different elements, has been heard of since his time. It 
is a humble comparison, else we should say that the character 
resembled those textures in which several colours are so 
interwoven, that the slightest movements in the light give 
them a quick alternation of predominance and brilliance, 
while neither hurts, but each seems to set off more richly 
the lustre of the other. 

In the short intervals of his trial, he recounted the pro- 
ceedings, in letters to his eldest daughter ; one of which we 
will partly transcribe, as a specimen both of his language 
and his character. The Secretary Cromwell had been 
urging him to re-consider the subject of the king's su- 
premacy, and to make such a declaration as would satisfy 
the king and preserve the prisoner's life. 

" Whereunto I shortly, after the inward affection of my mind, 
answered, for a very truth, that I would never meddle with the 
world again, to have the world given me. And to the remnant 



cbohwell's convebsaticxn" with moee. 223 

of the matter, I answered in effect as before ; showing that I 
had fully determined with myself, neither to study nor meddle 
with any mattter of this world ; but that my whole study should 
be, upon the passion of Christ, and mine own passage out of this 
world. 

" Upon this I was commanded to go forth for a while, and 
afterwards call in again. At which time Mr. Secretary said 
unto me, that though I were a prisoner, condemned to perpetual 
prison, yet I was not thereby discharged of mine obedience and 
allegiance unto the king's highness. And thereupon demanded 
me, whether that I thought, that the king's grace might not 
exact of me such things as are contained in the statutes, and 
upon like pains as he might upon other men 1 Whereto I an- 
swered, that I could not say the contrary. Whereunto he said, 
that likewise as the king's highness would be gracious to them 
whom he found conformable, so his grace would follow the 
course of his laws towards such as he shall find obstinate. And 
his mistership said further, that my demeanour in that matter 
was a thing which of likelihood made others so stiff therein as 
they be. 

" Whereto I answered, that I gave no man occasion to hold 
any point, one or other ; nor never gave any man advice or 
counsel therein, one way or other ; and for conclusion, 1 could 
no further go, whatsoever pain should come thereof. I am, 
quoth I, the king's true, faithful subject, and daily bedesman ; 
and pray for his highness, and all his, and all the realm. I do 
nobody harm, I say none harm, I think none harm, but wish 
every body good. And if this be not enough to keep a man 
alive, in good faith I long not to live. And I am dying already, 
and have, since I came here, been divers times in the case that 
I thought to die within one hour. And, I thank our Lord ! I w<ts 
never sorry for it, but rather sorry when I saw the pang past. 
And therefore, my poor body is at the king's pleasure ; would 
God my death might do him good ! 

" After this Mr. Secretary said, ' Well, you find no fault in 
that statute, find you any in any of the other statutes after V 
Whereto I answered, Sir, whatsoever thing should seem to me 
other than good in any of the other statutes, or in that statute 
either, I would not declare what fault I found, nor speak thereof : 
thereunto finally his mistership said full gently, that of any 
thing which I had spoken there should none advantage be taken. 

" Whereupon I was delivered again to Mr. Lieutenant, who 
was then called in ; and so was I, by Mr. Lieutenant, brought 
again into my chamber. And here am I yet, in such case as I 
was, neither better nor worse. That which shall follow lieth in 
the hand of God, whom I beseech, to put in the king's grace's 



224 MEMOIRS OF SIR THOMAS MORE. 

mind that thing which may be to his high pleasure ; and in mine, 
to mind only the weal of my soul, with little regard of my body; 
and you, with all yours, and my wife, and all my children, and 
all our other friends, both bodily and ghostly heartily well to 
fare. And I pray you and them all, pray for me, and take no 
thought whatsoever shall happen me. For I verily trust in the 
goodness of God ; seem it never so evil in this world, it shall 
indeed in another world be for the best. . Your lovmg father." 
—Vol. I., Pp. 202. 

His replies and defence, delivered in a gentle and argu- 
mentative manner, were eloquent, saintly, and heroic. After 
receiving the fatal sentence, he made the following address 
to his judges : — 

"More have I not to say, my lords, but that, like as the 
blessed apostle St. Paul, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, 
was present and consented to the death of St. Stephen, and kept 
their clothes who stoned him to death, and yet be they now both 
twain holy saints in heaven, and shall continue there friends 
together for ever, — so I verily trust, and shall therefore right 
heartily pray, that though your lordships have now here on 
earth been judges to my condemnation, we may yet hereafter in 
heaven all meet together, to everlasting salvation." — Pp. 227. 

It appears that the cheerful fortitude with which he en- 
countered death was not so spontaneous, as not to have cost 
him many painful efforts to obtain its predominance. 

"When he resigned his office, More withdrew his attention 
entirely from public affairs, and devoted himself to prayer and 
to his writings. He lessened his establishment, sold part of his 
effects, and sent his children to their own houses. He is said 
to have passed many sleepless nights in the anticipation of his 
fate, and to have prayed with fervour for courage under it, 
— for his flesh, he said, could not endure a fillip. He once went 
so far as to hire a pursuivant to come on a sudden at dinner- 
time to his house, and knocking hastily at the door, to summon 
him before the council the next day. This was to prepare his 
family for what they had to expect. 

* ' He would talk,' says Mr. Eoper, ' unto his wife and children 
of the joys of heaven and pains of hell, of the lives of holy mar- 
tyrs, of their grievous martyrdoms, of their marvellous patience, 
and of their passions and deaths, which they suffered rather 
than they would offend God. And what a happy and blessed 
thing it was, for the love of God to suffer the loss of goods, im- 
prisonment, loss of land and life also. Wherewith, and the like 
virtuous talk he had so long before his trouble encouraged them, 



HEEOIC BEHAYIOTJB AT HIS EXECUTION. 225 

that when he afterwards fell into trouble indeed, his trouble was 
to them a great deal the less." — P. 142. 

" In the course of his imprisonment, More seems never for a 
moment to have lost sight of the end which it was probable he 
should come to. He owns that he was of an irritable habit by 
nature, and weak against bodily sufferings. Yet the whole 
force of his mind appears to have been exerted at this time, in 
preparation to meet his fate with constancy and composure. We 
shall find that the effects of his endeavours, even to human eyes, 
were wonderful ; that no man ever overcame worldly suffering 
in the end more completely, or met so severe a fate with less 
dread of the stroke."— P. 196. 

The account of the manner in which he met that stroke, 
is certainly one of the most singular narratives in the history 
of mankind. 

" At the appointed time he was conducted from his prison by 
the lieutenant of the Tower to the place of execution : ' his 
beard being long,' says his great-grandson, ' his face pale and 
lean, carrying in his hands a red cross, casting his eyes often 
towards heaven.' Yet his facetiousness remained to the last, of 
which three instances are related to have passed, even on the 
scaffold. On ascending this structure, he found it so weak that 
it was ready to fall : upon which he said to the lieutenant, ' I 
pray see me up safe, and for my coming down let me shift for 
myself As Henry had so prudently imposed silence on him 
at this time, More only desired of his spectators that they would 
pray for him, and bear witness that he there suffered death in 
and for the faith of the Catholic church. This said, he knelt, and 
repeated a psalm with great devotion. He then rose cheerfully, 
and the executioner asking his forgiveness, More kissed him and 
said, ' Thou wilt do me this day a greater benefit than ever any 
mortal man can be able to give me. Pluck up thy spirit, man, 
and be not afraid to do thy office. My neck is very short ; take 
heed therefore that thou strike not awry for saving thy honesty.' 
When he laid his head on the block, he desired the excecu- 
tioner to wait till he had removed his beard, 'for that had never 
committed treason.' ' So with great alacrity and spiritual joy,' 
adds his great-grandson, * he received the fatal blow of the axe." 
—P. 234. 

Some grave and pious persons have been inclined to 
censure this gaiety, as incongruous with the feelings appro- 
priate to the solemn situation. We would observe, that 
though we were to admit as a general rule, that expressions 
of wit and pleasantry are unbecoming the last hour, yet Sir 

Q 



226 MEMOIES OF SIR THOMAS MOEE. 

Thomas More may be justly considered as the exception. 
The constitution of his mind was so singular and so happy, 
that throughout his life his humour and wit were evidently 
as a matter of fact, compatible, in almost all cases, with a 
general direction of his mind to serious and momentous 
subjects. His gaiety did not imply a dereliction, even for 
the moment, of the habitude of mind proper to a wise and 
conscientious man. It was an unquestionable matter of fact, 
that he could emit pleasantries, and be seriously weighing 
in his mind an important point of equity or law, and could 
pass directly from the play of wit to the acts and the 
genuine spirit of devotion. And if he could at all other 
times maintain a vigorous exercise of serious thought and 
devout sentiment, unhurt by the gleaming of these lambent 
fires, there was no good reason why they might not gleam 
on the scaffold also. He had thousands of times before 
approached the Almighty, without finding, as he retired, 
that one of the faculties of his mind, one of the attributes 
of extraordinary and universal talent imparted to him by 
that Being, was become extinct in consequence of pious 
emotions : and his last addresses to that Being could not be 
of a specifically different nature from the former ; they could 
only be one degree more solemn. He had before almost 
habitually thought of death, and most impressively realized 
it ; and still he had wit, and its soft lustre was to his friends 
but the more delightful for gilding so grave a contemplation: 
well, he could only realize the awful event one degree more 
impressively, when he saw the apparatus, and was warned 
that this was the hour. As Protestants, we undoubtedly 
feel some defect of complacency, in viewing such an admir- 
able display of heroic self-possession mingled with so much 
error ; but we are convinced that he was devoutly obedient 
to what he believed the will of God, that the contemplation 
of the death of Christ was the cause of his intrepidity, and 
that the errors of his faith were not incompatible with his 
interest in that sacrifice. 

There is so little danger of any excessive indulgence of 
sallies of wit in the hour of death, that there is no need to 
discuss the question how far, as a rule applicable to good 
men in general, such vivacity, as that of More, would in that 
season comport with the Christian character ; but we are of 



moee's pleasaktby justifiable. 227 

opinion, that it would fully comport, in any case substan- 
tially resembling bis ; in any case wbere the innocent and 
refined play of wit bad been through life one of the most 
natural and unaffected operations of the mind, where it had 
never been felt to prevent or injure serious thinking and 
pious feeling, and where it mingled with the clear indica- 
tions of a real Christian magnanimity in death. 



CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 

Christianity m India. An Essay on the Duty, Means, and Con- 
sequences of introducing the Christian Religion among the 
Native Inhabitants of the British Dominions in the East. By 
J. W. Cunningham, A.M., late Fellow of Jesus College, Cam- 
bridge. 8vo. 1808. 

No state of society in which a man can be educated is 
sufficiently pure and enlightened, to prepare him for be- 
holding, with a correct impression, the condition of the 
various tribes of mankind "with respect to religion. He 
may first be carefully taught, and may afterwards deeply 
study, the nature and tendency of religion, as exhibited in 
the Scriptures and the works of the Christian writers ; and 
in such a course of instructions and study he must no 
doubt have formed to himself an elevated idea of the effect 
which would be produced on the human mind and character, 
and on the general state of society, by the complete and 
unmodified operation of Christianity ; but still his idea of 
this effect will be greatly below the right standard, if during 
this course he is in a situation for seeing much of the cha- 
racter of mankind. While the mind is attempting to model 
a finished character, and to give the full prominence in this 
ideal picture to the fair virtues of devotion, faith, humility, 
sanctity, and charity, and while it is attempting to imagine 
a world full of beings, of such an amiable and celestial kind, 
■ — it is impossible that the crippled, diminutive, and de- 
formed shapes, which for the most part these virtues are 
doomed to wear in the Christian world, continually intrud- 

Q2 



228 CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 

ing on his sight, should not materially pervert the operation 
by which the mind is endeavouring to form to itself the 
idea of a complete Christian and of a Christian world, and 
infuse into that idea a certain measure of the surrounding 
and prevailing imperfection. The artist who produced the 
Medicean "Venus would in vain, with the same genius, have 
attempted such a phenomenon, in the course of a long resi- 
dence among the Hottentots, even though furnished with a 
volume of the clearest and minutest instructions and de- 
scriptions relative to the principles and lines of beauty ; his 
power of delineating in his imagination a perfect form 
would have been depraved by an invincible pre-occupation. 
It is true indeed, that, in our attempt to form a noble con- 
ception of what an individual or a numerous society under 
the perfect government of the Christian religion would be, 
we are assisted not only by a book of precepts and defini- 
tions, but also by many ancient and modern examples, of 
an excellence approaching in a respectable degree towards 
completely embodying the Christian principles. And this 
is most valuable assistance ; but still, these examples are 
not so often presented to view, nor so habitually present to 
thought, as to preclude much of the operation of that un- 
fortunate influence, by which the crowd of men as they are 
lowers our conception of what man ought to be. And with 
this imperfect standard of the excellence of Christianity 
gradually fixed in his mind, a man cannot feel the utmost 
of that disgust and regret which should in justice be excited 
by their religion around him. Besides, if it were possible 
to acquire and preserve, amidst so much irreligion, a perfect 
standard in the judgment, yet the moral feelings, which 
ought to accompany the application of it, would be deficient 
in vividness, as habit tends to make us indifferent in 
beholding that of which we even perceive all the evil. 

In order to imagine a man who should feel the perfectly 
correct and full impression from a view of the state of reli- 
gion in the several parts of this ill-fated world, we must 
suppose him possessed of extreme sensibility, early and 
progressively affected by the grand truths and objects of 
religion, brought up, till the age of maturity in the society 
of two or three of the purest and most devout of human 
beings, in a state of entire seclusion from the world, well 



EELIGIOtf A-MOKG PEOTESTAWTS. 229 

inclined to believe that mankind are now far better than, if 
what history he has read do not libel them, they formerly 
were, and chiefly occupied, in his soft retirement, in con- 
templating religious truth and ideal scenes of moral beauty. 
And we must suppose also, though contrary indeed to pos- 
sibility, that when this man is brought forth from his 
bowers of paradise, and led round the world to survey the 
various classes and nations of mankind, he shall retain, in 
passing through scenes increasing at each remove in im- 
piety and depravity, all that strong perception of the malig- 
nity of the evils presented to his view, with which he first 
set out. 

Let it be supposed that his first stage of observation is 
a Protestant country, like our own. Here one conspicuous 
circumstance would gratify him exceedingly ; the book, but 
for which there would have been no genuine knowledge of 
religion on earth, is almost in every house, and the inha- 
bitants are absolutely free to form their opinions from its 
sacred documents. The vast and extending system of 
efforts for promoting the knowledge and influence of reli- 
gious truth by the diversified means of all manner of writing 
and moral teaching, would delight him, till he came to 
compare it with the still vaster system for promoting show, 
elegance, fashion, and amusement. A selection of persons, 
respectable in point of numbers, till compared with the 
mass of the population, might be found approaching to 
some tolerable resemblance of the strong delineation of 
Christian character ever borne on his mind as the rule for 
estimating moral and religious excellence. But his satis- 
faction would be greatly exceeded by his grief and wonder 
when he viewed the nation collectively, and ventured a kind 
of calculating conjecture at the stupendous disproportion 
between the measure of religious thought, motive, and 
practice, actually existing in the nation, taken as an aggre- 
gate, and that other measure, which would be enough to 
constitute them all such persons as Christianity requires. 
The immense and obvious exhibition of immorality, pro- 
faneness, and infidelity, would strike his senses as palpably 
and as odiously as the putrid exhalations of a surrounding 
fen ; and his mortification and disgust would pass through 
all the varied degrees as he turned his attention to the 



230 CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 

more decorous part of society, and observed the general 
want of high moral principle, the indifference or very slight 
attention to the concerns which religion so emphatically 
insists on, the contentment with mere forms and ceremonies 
among some who would not be deemed to disregard it, and 
the ignorance and illiberality of others who really are in 
earnest in their profession of it. 

We will suppose him next to go to the Popish countries 
on the Continent, and, still, with his sensibility to every- 
thing in the religious condition of these countries quite as 
lively as if he had been conveyed directly thither from his 
original retirement. Supposing he had never before wit- 
nessed any idle ceremonies, any pomp of evolutions and 
decorations, applied to bedizen the primitive simplicity of 
the Christian institution, it would be the farthest thing in 
the world from his thoughts, on beholding the pageants, 
the tricks, and grimaces, which would meet his view in a 
Popish country, that these were exhibited as parts and 
appointments of Christianity. Some of them would appear 
a bad imitation of the opera, and others an humble rival of 
the puppet show ; the only wonder being how any human 
creatures could perform such ridiculous mummeries and 
antics with such gravity of face. The discovery that this 
most miserable farce pretended to an awful sanctity, and 
that the chief managers were held in reverence as the pecu- 
liarly consecrated servants of God, might as well be accom- 
panied by information of the absurd and impious tenets, 
and the several base maxims of morality, which compound 
themselves with this ritual to constitute, all together, the 
main substance of any thing acknowledged as religion in 
that country ; for there would be no new surprise prepared, 
by delaying the discovery, that a vile and fantastical cere- 
monial of superstition must be founded on such notions as 
will infallibly coalesce with immoral principles, and result in 
immoral practices. Now our observer, having formed his 
idea of Christianity from the New Testament, as consisting 
of a number of very plain, with one or two very mysterious 
doctrines, as prescribing and inspiring a worship of simple 
devotion, very nearly divested of all rites, and as both 
imperiously commanding and naturally producing a pure 
and dignified morality, — with what sentiments would he 



BELIG-ION AMONG MAHOMETANS. 231 

contemplate this religious tragi-comedy of mummery, error, 
and vice ? "Would he not feel nearly the same impressions, 
with the addition of much indignation, as if he had found 
the whole nation tainted with a disgusting and pernicious 
disease, and at the same time so infected in their minds as 
to be ostentatiously exhibiting the marks of that disease 
with an air of satisfaction and pride ? "Would he not be 
almost tempted to think, that something like the miraculous 
power, which was first exerted to introduce Christianity on 
the earth, as a holy and sublime system, must since have 
been surrendered to wicked men to be employed in trans- 
forming it into a system of corruption? "Would it not 
strike him as the most signal and direful of all judgments of 
the Almighty on the greater part of what is called the 
Christian world, that he should thus have abandoned his 
own best communication, to be debased to a state in which 
it becomes a perverter of those minds which it was originally 
adapted to enlighten and elevate ? And would he not feel 
an irresistible conviction, that as long as Christianity, in 
spite of the sacred Scriptures, and of all the labours of 
reformers, is retained in this state of debasement, there can 
be no real prosperity or peace in such nations, but an abso- 
lute certainty of successive calamities, becoming still more 
awful as the train advances, and smiting them with a 
continual stroke till they are either destroyed or reformed ? 
Let the supposed observer be conveyed next to a country 
of Mahometans, where again he will find something pur- 
porting to be a religion, and even teaching the worship of 
one Grod. But the nature and attendant circumstances of 
this religion would soon unfold themselves to his view. 
And when he saw its pretended sacred book supplanting 
the revelation of Grod by a farrago of ridiculous trifles, vile 
legends, and viler precepts, mixed with some magnificent 
ideas, stolen for the base purpose from that revelation, like 
the holy vessels of the Temple brought in to assist the 
debauch of Belshazzar and his lords; when he saw a 
detestable impostor acknowledged and almost adored in the 
office of supreme prophet and intercessor, this imposition 
enjoined in the name of Grod, to be enforced as far as the 
power of its believers can reach with fire and sword, the 
happiness of another world promised to every sanguinary 



232 CHRISTIANITY IN" INDIA. 

fanatic that dies in this cause, or even in any war that a 
Mahometan tyrant may choose to wage, the representation 
of that other world accommodated to the notions and tastes 
of a horde of barbarians, and, as a natural and just conse- 
quence of all, the whole social economy, after the energy 
and zeal of conquest had evaporated, living in a vast sink of 
ignorance, depravity, and wretchedness, — the shame and 
abhorrence with which he would contemplate such a moral 
exhibition, would tend to subside in a contempt of the 
human mind, which he would be compelled to regard as a 
base, servile thing, just fit to be the dupe of all delusions, 
the drudge and devotee of all wickedness, and the sport and 
rightful property of whatever individuals of the mass h: 
so much more vigour and depravity than the rest, as to 
able to erect a despotism of delusion and iniquity. In 
passing away from such a hateful scene, it would require a 
high degree of the Christian spirit to prevent his rejoicing 
that such an impious faith, and debased morality, are so 
well rewarded by physical plagues. His religion, however, 
would triumph over his anger, and he would quit such a 
country with deepest regret and compassion, making that 
pensive appeal to heaven, "Hast Thou made all men in 
vain. " 

But the last excess of alternate grief and indignation 
would be reserved for him to feel, on coming among a 
nation of absolute pagans. It has been the labour of his 
contemplative life to exalt his ideas of the divine essence, 
and as far as possible to abstract them from all those 
grosser modes of conception in which created objects are 
presented to our minds. He has made many an earnest, 
though . unsuccessful effort, to refine his thoughts to the 
conception of a pure spirit. After an intense exertion to 
reach the abstraction of the attributes of intelligence, 
benevolence, and power, he has exulted to think of their 
combination in infinite force in one awful Being. Pinding 
however, his faculties utterly sinking and lost in any trial to 
contemplate these attributes under the predicament of 
infinity, he has laboured to elevate and expand his idea of 
the divinity to the utmost possible magnificence, by 
thinking of the grandest objects and operations in the 
universe as the effects and imperfect displays of his attri- 






DEGKADH5TG INELTTEtfCE OE PAGANISM. 233 

butes, and as helping a feeble mind to attain a slight, an 
exceedingly slight, approximation towards a right conception 
of the Supreme Mind. To these ideas, arising from the 
vastness of the universe, the number, magnitude, and order 
of the heavenly bodies, the wonderful contrivance and power 
everywhere conspicuous, and especially in the creation of 
such numberless legions of intelligent beings, he has been 
solicitous to add the strongest illustrations of the Deity 
given in the inspired Scriptures. And finally, the contem- 
plation has not terminated in the speculative magnificence 
which at once elevates and overwhelms the understanding, 
but has ultimately rested, with all the inexpressible 
emphasis derived from such magnificent views, on our own 
solemn relations with the God of justice and the Grod of 
mercy. In the course, and under the just impression of 
such contemplations, let him enter a country where the 
majestic idea of a deity, originally imparted to our race, is 
transmuted into an endless miscellany of fantastic and 
odious fables, in what are esteemed the sacred books, and 
in the minds of that small proportion of the inhabitants 
that read them ; and where the mass of millions, together 
too with the more cultivated few, fall prostrate in adoration 
of the rudest pieces of mud and lumber that their own 
hands can shape. Let him walk out from his retired room 
or tent, after his soul has been raised in prayer to a real 
and an infinite Being, and approach one of those many 
shrines which in a populous district he may see deforming 
the country around him, and behold a number of creatures 
in his own shape fixed in petrified reverence, or performing 
grave ritual antics before a filthy figure, or sometimes an 
unshaped lump of wood or stone, daubed black and red, 
which piece of rubbish, without a shape, or in a shape more 
vile and ugly than it is possible for European hands to 
make, stands there in substitution for that Infinite Spirit 
which he has just been worshipping : — it stands for the most 
part in real and perfect substitution; but if it were in 
representation, the case would be very little better. Let 
him go on a variety of excursions, to make out if he can a 
list of all the modes, all equally vile, into which their 
idolatry has varied its prolific caprice. Let him gently 
interrogate, or remonstrate with some of its wretched 



234 CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 

slaves, and see to what a depth of infatuation the depravity 
of the mind can gravitate. Let him observe the innumer- 
able ceremonial fooleries, mixed with filthy consecrated 
customs ; and then for a moment recollect, if indeed he can 
be willing to have such opposites for a moment associated 
in his mind, the simplicity and spirituality of the Christian 
worship, the dignity of the very tastes which the religion 
cultivates, and its appropriate purity of manners. Let him 
observe, as performed at the dictate of the laws, customs, 
and priests of this superstition, such barbarous and whim- 
sical self-inflicted penances and torture, and such sacrifices 
of living relatives, as it would be supposed some possessing 
fiend had compelled the wretched pagans to adopt for his 
diversion ; let him observe, amidst these tyrannic rigours of 
a superstitious conscience, an entire want of conscience with 
respect to the great principles of morality, and the extinc- 
tion, in a great degree, of the ordinary sympathies of human 
nature for suffering objects; let him notice the deceitful 
and cruel character of the priests, exactly conformable to 

ithe spirit of the superstition ; and let him consider those 
unnatural but insuperable distinctions of the classes of 
society, which equally degrade the one by a stupid servility, 
and the other by a stupid pride. And finally, let him reflect 
that each day many thousands of such deluded creatures are 
dying, destitute of all that knowledge, those consolations, 
and those prospects, for which he adores the author of the 
Christian revelation. How would he be able to quell the 
sentiment of horror which would arise in his mind at every 
view and every thought of what we have thus supposed him 
to witness? He would feel as if something demoniac 
infested all the land, and pervaded all the air, inspiring a 
general madness previous to a general execution. For he 
would feel an unconquerable impression that a land could 
not be so abandoned of the divine mercy, but to be soon 
visited by the divine vengeance; and that vengeance he 
would hardly at some moments be able to deprecate, while 
beholding the occasional extraordinary excesses of frantic 
abomination. It would appear to him, that the very time 
was come for a glorious display of justice, and that such a 
solitude as that which Noah found, on descending from the 
ark, would be a delightful sequel to this populous and 



MELANCHOLY CONDITION" OP PAGANS. 235 

raging tumult of impiety. In "his retired and reflective 
moments, his indignation would again relent ; and lie would 
fervently implore that the mercy of Heaven would not suffer 
so large a part of the earth to continue darkened as if by 
the smoke of the infernal pit, and that all means, ordinary 
and extraordinary, might immediately be put in action for 
reclaiming any part of the infatuated and thus far devoted 
race. 

Impressions and emotions, somewhat like those we have 
described, would probably be experienced by a man possess- 
ing a perfect and undiminishable moral and religious sensi- 
bility, if conducted, as a witness, through the gradations of 
impiety to the paganism of our Asiatic subjects. If Indian 
traders, officers, and adventurers, feel an easy complacency 
at this last view, it only proves that they are not persons 
with whom any religious, any Christian argument can be 
held. A moral sense that belongs to complete man is 
wanting to them ; bo that infinitely the most important of 
the elements and phenomena of the moral world are 
una/pparent and impalpable to them; just as much so as 
that class of things and properties are to our present five 
senses, which might, as Locke observes, have become 
perceptible to us by means of a sixth or seventh sense, 
which the Creator could no doubt have given us. To these 
men, all the concerns and interests designated by the terms 
divine, spiritual, immortal, are nearly the same as non- 
existent. And as, with their bare half of that perceptive 
faculty which is essential to complete rational man, they 
cannot for their lives make themselves see the millions of a 
vast nation in any character more important than that of 
consumers of exported commodities, or growers of rice and 
indigo, or fabricators of manufactures, or the materials for 
recruiting regiments, — nor comprehend how any greater evil 
can exist or arise among them than their consuming or 
producing less of marketable commodity, or their choosing 
to be governed by one set of their fellow-mortals rather than 
another, they are most violently angry at a class of men 
who must needs pretend to see these millions in a far 
different and infinitely more important light, as beings that 
have souls, accountable to their Creator, but merged in the 
most melancholy ignorance of themselves and of himj as 



236 PALET AS A THEOLOGIAN. 

hideously degraded by a hateful superstition ; and therefore 
as objects whose condition calls mjghtily for the compassion 
and assistance of their more favoured brethren. But it is 
this latter class of men who can perceive the moral, 
religious, and eternal interests of mankind, and of any 
portion of mankind, as inconceivably more momentous than 
all their political and commercial economy ; who cannot 
behold without horror a countless population prostrating 
themselves before idols, and who think a government that 
does not do all it can to reduce the evil will incur the 
vengeance of Glod, — it is only this class of men that can be 
admitted as competent of mind to reason on our obligations 
respecting the religious condition of India. Among these 
Mr. Cunningham stands conspicuous. 



PALET AS A THEOLOQIAK 

Sermons on several Subjects. By the late Bev. William Palet, 
D.D., Subdean of Lincoln, and Bector of Bishopswearmouth. 
8vo. 1809. 

"We regard this book in the light of an invitation to 
attend the funeral of one of the most powerful advocates 
that ever defended the best cause. And if our regret were 
to be in proportion either to the value of the life which has 
terminated, or to the consideration of how many instances 
of such talent so happily applied may be expected hereafter, 
it would be scarcely less deep than that which we feel for 
the loss of our most valued friends. But the regret is not 
required to correspond to this latter consideration ; because 
the Christian world does not absolutely need a numerous 
succession of such men. It has been the enviable lot of 
here and there a favoured individual, to do some one impor- 
tant thing so well, that it shall never need to be done again: 
and we regard Dr. Paley's writings on the Evidences of 
Christianity as of so signally decisive a character, that we 
could be content to let them stand as the essence and the 
close of the great argument on the part of its believers ; 



palet's evidences oe oheistianity. 237 

and should feel no despondency or chagrin, if we could be 
prophetically certified that such an efficient Christian rea- 
soner would never henceforward arise. We should consider 
the grand fortress of proof as now raised and finished— the 
intellectual capitol of that empire which is destined to leave 
the widest boundaries attained by the Eoman very far 
behind. 

It would seem that the infidels, notwithstanding their 
perseverance in their fatal perversity, do yet nearly coincide 
in this opinion of Dr. Paley's writings : as none of them 
have presumed to attempt a formal refutation. They are 
willing to enjoy their ingenuity of cavilling and misrepre- 
senting, their exemption from the restraints of religion, and 
their transient impunity, under the ignominious and alarm- 
ing condition of conceding, that they have no reply to a 
remonstrant who tells them that their speculations are false, 
that their moral principles are corrupt, and that their pros- 
pects are melancholy — who calmly proves to them that cer- 
tain declarations and requisitions have been made by the 
Governor of the world, and that if they choose to repel and 
ridicule them, they are indeed quite at liberty to do it, but 
must make up their minds to abide the consequences, 
which consequences are most distinctly foreshown in those 
declarations. 

"With respect to those persons whose judgments are un- 
decided on the grand inquiry, whether Christianity is of 
divine authority or not, we would earnestly press on their 
minds the question, whether they really care, and are in 
earnest on the subject ; whether they value their spiritual 
nature enough to deem it worth while to attain, by a serious 
investigation, a determinate conclusion on the claims of a 
religion which at once declares that spiritual nature to be 
immortal, and affirms itself to offer the only means for its 
perpetual happiness. If they really do not care enough 
about this transcendent subject, to desire above all things 
on earth a just and final determination of their judgments 
upon it, we can only deplore that anything so precious as a 
mind should have been committed to such cruelly thought- 
less possessors. We can only repeat some useless expres- 
sions of amazement to see a rational being holding itself in 
such contempt; and predict a period when itself will be 



238 PALEY AS A THEOLOGIAN. 

still much more amazed at the remembrance how many 
thousand insignificant questions found their turn to be con- 
sidered and decided, while the one involving infinite conse- 
quences, was reserved to be determined by the event — too 
late therefore to have an auspicious influence on that event, 
which was the grand object, for the sake of which it ought 
to have been determined before all other questions. If, on 
the contrary, a strong solicitude is felt to put an end, in the 
shortest time possible, to all doubts respecting the authority 
of the Christian religion, the very first duty, next to that of 
imploring sincerity and illumination from heaven, is to 
study the works of this author. It is impossible to hear, 
with the slightest degree of respect or patience, the expres- 
sions of doubt or anxiety about the truth of Christianity, 
from any one who can delay a week to obtain the celebrated 
View of its Evidences, or fail to read it through again and 
again. It is of no use to say what would be our opinion of 
the moral and intellectual state of his mind, if after this he 
remained still undecided. 

It is not perhaps to be required, as a general rule, that a 
man who extends his investigations round the whole border 
and circumference, if we may so express it, of a great system 
of truth, constructing defensive arguments, and planting 
" armed watch" at every point open to attack or actually 
attacked, and everywhere looking out to a great distance 
to ascertain from what quarter and in what direction an 
enemy may come, should carefully and separately examine 
all the interior parts of this system. It were too much to 
insist that the military guardian of a whole country, who 
takes the charge of its thousand miles of frontier, should 
acquaint himself with the rural and local economy of its 
several districts, or cultivate himself some particular piece 
of its ground. He might tell us it is enough that, while his 
talents and exertions are maintaining the general security, 
there is happy scope given for the good management of all 
the affairs in detail, by men, whose cares are not forced to 
such a painful expansion. A man who sedulously and ably 
performs, for all other Christian students and teachers, the 
great office of bringing into their hands, from an immensely 
extensive field of inquiries, all the most decisive proofs of 
the divine origin and authority of the system, may well 






PALEX'S NATURAL THEOLOGY. 239 

demand that they in return should furnish to Mm more 
accurate investigations of its component parts than his ex- 
tended labours will have allowed him to prosecute or finish, 
instead of invidiously scrutinizing and exposing the defects 
of his knowledge in the detail. To have exhibited what will 
be appealed to for ages to come, as a most luminous concen- 
tration of evidence, in proof that divines have really a direct 
revelation from Grod to explain and discriminate into a sys- 
tem of particular doctrines, is a much more difficult and 
important service, than assuming this great general truth, it 
would be to give the clearest elucidation of one, or two, or 
ten of those doctrines. And besides, the other studies pro- 
secuted by Dr. Paley, with a direct view, as it is fair to 
infer from their ultimate application, of vindicating the first 
principle of all religion, the belief a God, were of a nature 
to absorb long spaces of his life, as they extended to very 
wide and scientific departments of knowledge. 

From the consideration of studies extended over such 
ample and various ground, and yet all made to conduce to 
the advancement of religion, we should think it uncarjdid to 
exact from this distinguished author a minute precision 
throughout the whole list of theological questions. It is 
true, indeed, that the importance of religion, as a whole, 
must consist in the aggregate importance of all its parts : 
but we are not making any contrast, or referring to any 
proportion of importance, between the aggregate and the 
separate parts ; we are merely pointing to the much more 
extended scope, and the much severer process, of the great 
general argument, as compared with the argument on any 
specific Christian doctrine. This specific argument requires 
of course but one document, of which it assumes the validity, 
but to the establishment of which validity so many other 
documents, and so many methods of investigation, were 
antecedently required. 

Nevertheless, on first hearing of the publication of the 
sermons of Dr. Paley, we thought it not improbable that he 
might occasionally have exerted the whole force of his 
enriched and penetrating mind on some selected point of 
Christian doctrine or morals ; and were prepared to expect 
a number of elaborate, and therefore important, dissertations. 
"We were not apprized that the volume would chiefly consist 



240 PALEX AS A THEOLOGIAN. 

of the very short and hastily written discourses which were 
composed in the ordinary course of his professional services. 
The shortness, indeed, of some of them, is tantalizing and 
vexatious. "When an important subject has been concisely 
laid forth, when two or three views of it have been very 
transiently unfolded, when some most striking argument 
appears to be just opening, of which we earnestly wish for 
an ample illustration, then, even just then, comes the twelfth 
or the thirteenth page, and suddenly puts an end to the 
reasoning and the discourse, leaving us to a mortification 
rather similar to what we recollect to have felt on being 
obliged to shut up a volume of prints of the structures of 
Baalbec, when we had looked through about half the series, 
or on being suddenly called away from a philosophical lecture, 
when the most curious experiments were going to be made in 
illustration of an interesting proposition. Several of the sub- 
jects are indeed prolonged to two or three sermons, but we end 
almost all of them with an impression of the incompleteness 
of the discussion, from the narowness of the allotted space. 
But for some rather unceremonious addresses on some 
rather uncourteous subjects, we must be led to entertain a 
lofty idea of Dr. Paley's auditory ; for how important must 
have been the employments with which their time was 
accustomed to be occupied, when such a preacher could 
seldom presume to trespass beyond fifteen minutes ! But 
with regard to congregations in general, it is surely very 
fair to observe how useless such discourses must be. If even 
Dr. Paley, with his admirable power of compression and 
lucid statement, is quite unable in such a contracted space 
to do justice to the bare argument of a subject — to say 
nothing of those modes of representing and enforcing it, 
which are requisite to secure for it a place in the imagina- 
tion under the form of some striking figure or scene, or to 
make it impressive on the conscience and affections, — what 
can be expected from such a diminutive shred of the compo- 
sition of ordinary performers o,f the sacred services ? We 
should undoubtedly be among the most vociferous to protest 
against a return towards the triple hour-glass discourses of 
the venerable Puritan and ancient Scotch Presbyterian times ; 
but really human creatures must be prodigiously changed 
since that period, if but a tenth part of the same in- 






ABSENCE OE RHETORICAL ORNAMENT. 241 

struction be now sufficient to expel their ignorance and 
their vices. 

No reader of Dr. Paley's former works will open his 
Sermons with any expectation of what we usually call elo- 
quence. A mind, predetermined perhaps by its original 
structure, and therefore accustomed from early youth to 
seek the rationale, as it used to be termed, of every subject, 
would come to have little esteem for the lighter matters of 
imagery and sentiment. Its attention would instantly fix 
on the hard and supporting parts of all doctrines and 
systems, as the eye of John Hunter almost involuntarily 
examined the anatomical structure of all animal forms that 
came in his view, often quite forgettiug all the beauties of 
complexion, colour, or gloss, and, perhaps, sometimes regard- 
ing even the most ornamental appearances of the superficial 
substance as but disagreeable obstructions to his desired 
research into the conformation of the bones. Such a mind 
views all subjects as placed in a state of controversy by 
opposite proportions and argumentations; and regards it 
as the noblest, indeed, the only noble intellectual achieve- 
ment, to carry a question through the conflict of adverse 
arguments, and in the result to establish some one thing as 
true, consolidating its proofs by a demolition of all that 
opposes; and therefore this argumentative mind makes 
little use or account of any forces but the rigid ones of the 
understanding, leaving every thing that relates to deco- 
ration and attraction to the taste and fancy of orators and 
poets. If a builder of ships of war happens to walk through 
a forest, he will ta*ke little notice of trees recommended by 
taper elegance on the one side of his path, or by beautiful 
foliage aad blossoms on the other ; it is the oak that his eye 
naturally searches for, and fixes on with, the most interest ; 
and even in looking at that, he does not care about the rich 
mass of green shade, the fine contour of its form, or the 
wreaths of woodbine that may be climbing and flowering 
round its stem ; he is thinking precisely of the timber, 
which is to brave storms and artillery. 

The compositions before us are devoid of all ornament, 
and evidently did not receive the ordinary finishing of an 
author. The language is sometimes quite homely, some- 
times inaccurate, and but barely anywhere attains a 



242 PALEY AS A THEOLOGIAN. 

tolerable degree of neatness ; it is as free from variegated 
colouring as the winter sky, while the author's imagination 
is as subdued as the principle of vegetation appears just now 
in the middle of December. The train of thought, as far as- 
it is carried, is a most simple exercise of intellect, very 
briefly analyzing, occasionally with a slight use of the forms 
of logical process, and generally with admirable discrimina- 
tion, some speculative or moral principle in the theory of 
religion, with the intermixture of a few plain reflections of a 
practical tendency. The passions are no further attempted 
to be moved than as that effect may be produced by a short 
and very cool and sober statement of what is deemed the 
most important consideration involved in the subject. And 
we will acknowledge that the grave stillness of manner, and 
the extreme simplicity of expression with which solemn 
considerations are presented, have sometimes, on us, the 
effect of making them more impressive, than perhaps we 
should have felt them as exhibited in oratoric language. 
For instances, we should refer, among other Sermons, to 
those on the " Neglect of Warnings," and the " Terrors of 
the Lord." There are certain classes of thoughts which are 
expressed by almost all writers in language of apparent 
emotion, and by many with strong figures, and urgent 
appeals and inculcations; when such momentous thoughts 
are uttered in a perfectly calm manner, they come to us, 
partly by contrast with their usually impassioned mode of 
being communicated, with a certain air of novelty, which 
more forcibly arrests and fixes our attention ; we are made 
to look the subject more directly in the face, in consequence 
of meeting it thus divested of its usual array of authority, 
and yet bearing an aspect of the highest authority still. It 
is useful for us now and then to be made to feel what an 
imperative quality religious truth possesses essentially, and 
can therefore evince, without the aid of raised and ardent 
language. Part of this authoritative effect of serious truths 
coolly expressed, may also be owing to the very manner of 
the person thus expressing them. Provided he is believed 
to be a wise and pious man, his thus refusing to come into a 
state of sympathy with us, and gravely placing solemn truth 
before us as a being without passions, gives us, at times, an 
impression as if he were a monitor of a superior order to 



INVARIABLE GRAVITY OE MANNER. 243 

ourselves, whose object in addressing us is to execute a 
serious commission to which he is appointed, leaving us to 
regard or to slight at our choice what he was sent by a 
higher authority to say to us. And besides, when important 
truths are declared in a manner totally unimpassioned, he 
who utters them appears by this calm manner to place an 
entire reliance on the force of the truth itself, feeling it of 
too solemn and peremptory a character to need the help of 
passion and rhetoric to enable it to command our utmost 
attention. No writer, however, whose manner of treating 
affecting subjects is so still and cold, can ever make this 
kind of impression, unless that manner be also distinguished 
by a deep and invariable gravity ; and this quality prevails 
in the greatest degree throughout these Sermons. The 
homeliness of phrase which we have noticed, does indeed 
much detract from the dignity of the discourses ; but the 
seriousness is never interrupted; we do not recollect one 
sentence that appears adapted or intended ta amuse. The 
single idea of an amusing nature, excited in perusing this 
whole volume, has been that of the damp and mortification 
which will fall on the spirits of any gay, fashionable triflers 
that may look into these Sermons from complaisance to the 
celebrated name of the author. Perhaps, indeed, we should 
not talk of being amused at the mortification which indicates 
such an unhappy state of mind ; certainly we should be glad 
for any of them suddenly to become so altered, as to be 
interested rather than repelled by the seriousness. 

In speaking of the effect which we have felt in reading 
parts of these Sermons, from the cool and somewhat austere 
manner in which the most interesting subjects are presented, 
we have described something different from the usual course 
of our experience : from our manner of accounting for it, we 
shall not be misunderstood to approve, in general, of so cold 
a manner of exhibiting the subjects of supreme consequence ; 
for popular addresses we condemn it totally. Erom the 
causes just specified, taken with our previous respect for 
Dr. Paley, with the frequent proofs of the same vigorous 
intellect in this volume, with the circumstance that we read 
the Sermons instead of hearing them, and with the conside- 
ration that the author is no more, we have been considerably 
interested and moved by several passages which maintain a 

r 2 



244s PALEY AS A THEOLOGIAN. 

singular composure of manner in referring to " the good 
and evil of eternity;" but the general rule for preachers 
will always continue to be, that since the instructor and the 
persons instucted have just the same momentous interest in 
the concerns of religion, he ought to exhibit and enforce 
with the utmost zeal, what they ought to receive with the 
deepest emotions of conscience and the most earnest aspira- 
tions for the divine mercy. Notwithstanding the serious- 
ness of these Sermons, and notwithstanding he may disap- 
prove, on account of its formality, the method of always 
closing religious discourses by a distinct application of the 
subject to the conscience and the passions, every pious 
reader will feel a great deficiency of the requisite zeal, on 
the part of the preacher, in the shortened and inanimate 
conclusions of these discourses. It will be felt as if the 
Christian advocate cared not how soon or how tamely he 
dismissed the subject, as if he dismissed it without having 
become more partial to it while unfolding and recommending 
it, as if he had no tendency to fall into a prolonged expostu- 
lation in its favour, as if he had no expectation that 
his discourse should produce any effect, and as if he felt 
but little of either sadness or indignation to think it would 
fail. 

There will be considerable curiosity, and even anxiety, 
in the religious public, to learn the exact character of 
Dr. Paley's religious opinions ; and each of the chief op- 
posed classes of the believers in Christianity would be glad 
to find cause to assume so eminent a reasoner as according 
specifically with their views. As far as we can judge, he is 
not to be fully appropriated by any one of these classes. It 
is evident that his judgment was in a state of indecision 
relative to several important questions ; and that candour 
must suggest, as we have suggested, the magnitude of his 
labours, in the investigation of the great basis and authority 
of religion in general, in excuse for his not having devoted a 
competent share of attention to the determination of the 
specific principles, dictated in the inspired book which he so 
powerfully defended. 

It would be more easy perhaps to say what this most able 
inquirer's opinions were not, than precisely what they were. 
His ideas of the person of Christ are nowhere attempted to 






OK THE DEATH OF CHE1ST. 245 

be formally explained and are but very slightly unfolded 
even by passing intimations. 

"With regard to the death of Christ, he expresses strongly 
his impression of the mysteriousness both of the appoint- 
ment itself, and of the manner in which that sacrifice pro- 
duces its appointed effect ; but he fully asserts that it was 
really and strictly a sacrifice, that it is constituted a part of 
the economy of human redemption, and that, though in 
some inexplicable manner, it is efficacious towards that great 
object. How much we regret that the sermon written to 
assert this great doctrine, which we regard as absolutely of 
the essence of the Christian religion, should have been con- 
fined to ten pages ! "We could not but be much gratified to 
find the respected author decidedly avowing this faith ; but 
it is painful to observe his apparent reluctance to dwell on 
it even long enough to illustrate its evidence. He says, 
" We have before us a doctrine of a very peculiar, perhaps I 
may say, of a very unexpected kind ;" and this its peculi- 
arity and strangeness would seem to have caused him an 
irksome feeling in advancing it. He seems to have quite 
forgotten, that exactly in proportion to the degree in which 
it is of a peculiar and unexpected nature, the proof of its 
truth ought to have been laboured and complete : whereas 
he appears to have been haunted by some uncomplacent 
feeling, which precipitated him through a scanty though 
appropriate selection of scriptural authorities, connected by 
short reasonings, and followed by a general conclusion, to 
escape from the subject as soon as possible by a suggestion 
or two concerning the moral influence which such a doctrine 
claims, and is adapted to have, on our feelings. " It was 
only," he says, " for a moral purpose that the thing was 
revealed at all ; and that purpose is a sense of gratitude and 
obligation;" a position which we do not perfectly under- 
stand. "We should have thought that the purpose for which 
that sacred economy was revealed, must be exactly parallel 
to that for which it was appointed. If it was appointed as 
a grand expedient for saving men, the leading purpose of its 
being revealed must be, that men may so understand it, 
adopt it, and confide in it, as to be saved. 

The Sermon which follows the one on the efficacy of the 
death of Christ, is designed to prove, that all need a Ee- 



248 PALEY AS A THEOLOGIAN. 

deemer ; and this is done in a plain and rather forcible 
manner, by displaying the imperfect state of the human 
character, even in good men, and representing what a 
slender claim could be founded on such deficient virtues. 
But though it must, on the whole, be allowed, that the 
Doctor is not very much a flatterer of his species, we think 
that, in unfolding the culpable state of the human character, 
he does not go to the depth and basis of the evil. He 
seems to regard moral defect, or sin, rather as accidental to 
individual men, than as radical in the nature of man ; and 
therefore that necessity of a Eedeemer, which is primarily 
to be inferred from the inspired declarations respecting the 
melancholy moral condition of our very nature, is inferred 
solely from an enumeration of actual sins and sinners. 
According to our view of the doctrine of the New Testa- 
ment, it is not precisely and merely because men have been 
guilty of a certain number of specific sins, of omission and 
commission, that they need a Redeemer (and, on this hypo- 
thesis, some men much more than others, as having been 
guilty of more and greater sins) ; but more comprehensively 
and abstractedly, because they are in that radically corrupt 
state of moral being, of which these specific evils are but 
the indications and natural results. Nor does our author 
appear to entertain such an estimate of the operation and 
awards of the divine law of perfection, as to make the infe- 
rence from this quarter as to the necessity of a Eedeemer, 
so absolute and so awful as it seems to be made in the New 
Testament ; for though he judges that on the ground of this 
law a man could not, by his best efforts, have merited the 
vast and endless felicity designated by the term Heaven, he 
is by no means disposed to pronounce that such a man 
might not have merited on that ground some measure of 
happiness ; much less that the imperfect obedience would 
have merited punishment, The necessity of a Eedeemer 
that is here insisted on, is therefore of a very modified kind. 
To avoid admitting the appointment of a Eedeemer as an 
entirely new economy of the moral relations of men with 
their Almighty Governor, in regard to the terms of their 
acceptance, our author briefly proposes a theory, which 
makes the death of Christ the cause, and virtue, holiness, or 
" a good life," the condition of salvation. 



CONDITIONS OP SALTATION. 247 

■' We must bear in mind, that in the business of salvation 
there are naturally and properly two things, viz., the cause and 
the condition ; and that these two things are different. We 
should see better the propriety of this distinction, if we would 
allow ourselves to consider well what salvation is: what the being 
saved means. It is nothing less than after this life is ended, 
being placed in a state of happiness exceedingly great, both in 
degree and duration," &c. 

After displaying the magnificence of this prospect, he 
proceeds : — 

" Will any one then contend that salvation in this sense, and 
to this extent ; that heaven, eternal life, glory, honour, immor- 
tality ; that a happiness, such that there is no way of describing 
it, but by saying that it surpasses human comprehension ; will 
any one contend that this is no more than what virtue deserves, 
what in its own. proper nature, and by its own merit, it is 
entitled to look forward to and to receive ? The greatest virtue 
that man ever attained to has no such pretensions. The best 
good action that man ever performed has no claim to this extent, 
or any thing like it. It is out of all calculation, and comparison, 
and proportion, above and more than any human works can 
possibly deserve. To what then are we to ascribe it, that 
endeavours after virtue should procure, and that they will in 
fact procure, to those who sincerely exert them, such immense 
blessings 1 To what but the voluntary bounty of Almighty God, 
who in his inexpressible good pleasure hath appointed it so to 
be 1 The benignity of God towards man hath made him this 
inconceivably advantageous offer. But a most kind offer may 
still be a conditional offer. And this, though an infinitely gra- 
cious and beneficial offer, is still a conditional offer, and the 
performance of the conditions is as necessary as if it had been an 
offer of mere retribution. 

" Some who allow the necessity of good works to salvation 
are not willing that they should be called conditions of salvation. 
But this, I think, is a distinction too refined for common Chris- 
tian apprehension. If they be necessary to salvation, they are 
conditions of salvation, so far as I can see. 

" The cause of salvation is the free will, the free gift, the love 
and the mercy of God. That alone is the source, and fountain, 
and cause of salvation, from which all hopes of our attaining to 
it are derived. The cause is not in ourselves, nor in anything we 
do, or can do, but in God, in his good will and pleasure. There- 
fore, whatever shall have moved, and excited, and conciliated 
that good will and pleasure, so as to have procured that offer to 
be made, or shall have formed any part or portion of the motive 



248 PALEY AS A THEOLOGIAN. 

from which it was made, may most truly and properly be said 
to be efficacious in human salvation. This efficacy is in Scrip- 
ture ascribed to the death of Christ. It is attributed in a variety 
of ways of expression. He is a sacrifice, an offering to God, a 
propitiation, the precious sacrifice fore- ordained, the ' Lamb slain 
from the foundation of the world/ 'the Lamb which taketh 
away the sin of the world :' we are ' washed in his blood,' we 
are 'justified by his blood,' ' we are saved from wrath through 
him,' &c., &c. 

" Still it is true that a man will not obtain what is offered, 
unless he comply with the terms ; so far his compliance is a con- 
dition of his happiness. But the grand thing is the offer being 
made at all. That is the ground and origin of the whole. That 
is the cause."— Pp. 313, 315, &c. 

The Doctor himself is fully aware that this view of the 
subject, notwithstanding every precaution in the statement, 
every admonition of un worthiness, every representation of 
the magnitude of the promised felicity, and every eulogium 
of the generosity of the divine Benefactor, will yet have a 
strong tendency, as the human mind is constituted, to 
cherish notions of high desert after all. He has taken pains 
and made a very plausible representation of a parallel case 
to prevent this obvious consequence. But we think it 
would so infallibly result as to destroy that estimate of the 
Christian economy as a system of pure absolute mercy, 
which is so often expressed in the New Testament, and to 
preclude that feeling of boundless obligation which ani- 
mated the gratitude and devotion of the apostles. 

In the way of showing the incorrectness of the theory, it 
will be enough just to notice the very imperfect conception 
and definition of salvation with which it sets out. If any 
one thing be evident in the New Testament, it would seem 
to be, that salvation, as there described, does not consist 
solely in a final preservation from punishment and attain- 
ment of the heavenly felicity, but includes essentially that 
sanctified state of the mind and character, which forms a 
preparation for that final happiness. This purified state, 
we apprehend, is represented not as a mere antecedent cir- 
cumstance of salvation, but as a part of its very essence. 
But it would be strangely incorrect to call that a condition 
of salvation, which is an essential part of it. 

Again, the Christian Scriptures state, we should think, 






ON SUDDEN COISTEBSIONS. 249 

with the utmost distinctness, that the sanctity of mind 
which is the operating principle in all practical Christian 
virtue, and but for which not one act of true Christian 
virtue would ever be performed, is just as much a free gift 
of the divine mercy, and just as impossible to have been 
otherwise obtained, as that final felicity which is the com- 
pletion of salvation ; but it would be strange to call that a 
condition, of which the substance is to be effected by the 
very Being who prescribes it. 

There are in the volume several sermons on the influences 
of the Holy Spirit ; but they do not lay down a very 
defined doctrine on the subject. In some passages the 
preacher seems very anxious to avoid representing those 
influences as of purely arbitrary operation on the part of 
the divine Being, and to maintain that they are determined 
towards their object by some favourable predisposition in 
that object ; or that they are not often granted till after 
they are requested. In other passages, the theory of the 
divine operations on the mind appears to us to go very nearly 
the whole length of the doctrine denominated Calvinistic, 
particularly when the Doctor adverts to the sudden con- 
version of very wicked men. On this topic he speaks in 
much stronger terms than are probably ever heard from the 
greater number of the pulpits of our Established Church ; 
in such terms, indeed, as from any other man would be 
deemed most methodistical and fanatical. He expresses 
(and every page of the book bears the most perfect marks 
of sincerity) his delight and his thankfulness to Heaven, on 
account of those instances of a sudden change of mind and 
character, — in consequence perhaps of hearing a sermon, or 
reading a passage of the Bible, or hearing some casual 
observation, — which many official divines are attempting to 
scout, in language of ridicule or rancour, as the freaks or 
fancies of a pernicious enthusiasm. The Doctor had too 
much of the spirit of a true philosopher, to reject an 
important class of facts in forming his theory; and too 
little of the bigot, to be indignant that notorious sinners 
should become devout Christians and virtuous citizens, 
because they became so in the mode and the precincts of 
Methodism. Eor this contempt of the ignorant, bigoted, 
and irreligious rant which prevailed around him, we honour 



250 PALEY AS A THEOLOGIAN". 

him too much to be willing to make any of the remarks 
which we intended on some parts of his sermon on " The 
Doctrine of Conversion," founded on that expression of 
our Lord, "I am come not to call the righteous, but sinners 
to repentance;" on which he observes, "It appears from 
these words, that our Saviour, in his preaching, held in view 
the character and spiritual situation of the persons whom 
he addressed ; and the differences which existed among 
them in these respects : and that he had a regard to these 
considerations, more especially in the preaching of repen- 
tance and conversion" (p. 116). "We would only just 
ask, "Who were the righteous among our Lord's hearers P 
the Scribes, Pharisees, and Rulers ? Or were they the 
Sadducees ? Or were they the publicans and sinners ? 
Plainly who and where were they ? Can anything be more 
evident, than that it was of the very essence of our Lord's 
mission and ministry to adjudge them all unrighteous, abso- 
lutely every one, excepting those who were become his con- 
verts and disciples ? Could any of his hearers reject him 
and be righteous ? But it is plain that the epithet was not 
in this instance applied by him to his converts and disciples, 
as it had been absurd to say, " It is not my object to convert 
those whom I have already converted." If, therefore, the 
term was applied to any class of his hearers, it must be to 
those who rejected him. And how could it be applied to 
them ? How, but evidently in the sense in which the text 
has been so often explained, as a severe irony on the proud 
self-righteous Pharisees ? Or if such a mode of expression 
be thought inconsistent with the solemn simplicity of our 
Lord's character, the passage may be interpreted as this 
simple proposition — that it was because these persons, in 
whose company he was so often found, were sinners, that he 
frequented their company ; that to be in the society of sin- 
ners was the sole object of his sojourning on earth, for that, 
if men had been righteous, they would not have needed a 
Saviour. 

As the Sermons are nearly forty, we do not give all their 
titles. A considerable proportion are entirely practical. A 
very able one, on the " Destruction of the Canaanites,"* 
ought to have been four times its present length. 

* A good summary of the arguments on this subject will be 
four.d in a recent number of the Pardoloyia,, Art. l( Canaanites." 



AMERICA BEE0BE THE REVOLUTION. 251 

It would be ridiculous in us to affect to recommend a 
volume written by Dr. Paley. It will be extensively read ; 
its readers will receive many useful and striking thoughts ; 
and we earnestly wish they may study the New Testament 
enough to be saved from any injurious impression of what 
we caunot allow ourselves to regard as unimportant errors. 



AMEBIC A BEEOKE THE EEVOLUTION. 

Memoirs of an American Lady. "With Sketches of Manners and 
Scenery in America, as they existed previous to the Bevolu- 
tion. By the Author of " Letters from the Mountains," &c. 
12mo., 2 vols.- 1808. 

Ik common hands, the undertaking to write an account of 
the dame of a country squire, who lived, half a century since, 
a couple of hundred miles more or less up the Hudson river, 
and to do this after the writer has been forty years an entire 
stranger to the place and the person, and notwithstanding 
she was perhaps hardly twelve years old at the time of 
finally quitting them, would have seemed a rather forlorn 
literary project. The present writer, however, was advised 
to such an undertaking by her friends ; and in executing it, 
has produced one of the most interesting books that we have 
seen for a good while past. A brief notice of the materials 
composing it, will explain how such a quality could be im- 
parted to such a book, even without any severe labour on 
the part of the writer. The most en-viable perhaps of all 
qualifications for making interesting books, is to have ac- 
tually visited scenes little known, and seen with an 
observant and reflective mind, uncommon objects and trans- 
actions. 

The author is well aware that the great distance of time 
since she quitted America, and the very early period of life 
at which her observations were made, will not be favourable 
to the credit of accuracy in her narratives and delineations, 
especially when it is added that she has not the aid of any 



252 AMERICA BEFORE THE REVOLUTION". 

written memorials. Under such circumstances, any moderate 
degree of truth, in the sketches, would imply an extraordi- 
nary prematurity of thought and tenacity of memory. But 
these advantages will be amply and confidently attributed to 
the writer, by every one that observes the nice shades in 
her pictures, and the minute facts in some parts of her 
record : while her character will give the assurance of a 
uniform concern to preserve truth of representation. After 
saying thus much, it is fair to observe, that a certain fallacy 
of colouring is quite inevitable in such a work. It is familiar 
to every one's knowledge that there is a double deception 
in recollecting, in advanced life, the scenes and events of 
childhood ; they presented a deceptive appearance at the 
time, to a mind opening to the delights of existence, exulting 
in the joys of novelty, surprise, affection, and hope, and too 
ignorant, and too eagerlywelcoming a crowd of new ideas, 
to have learnt to compare, to discriminate, and to suspect ; 
and again, in the recollections in later life, a second imposi- 
tion passes on the mind, in that fond sympathy with one's 
former self, that momentary recovery of juvenile being, by 
which the delights and the astonishments of the early period 
are represented as more exquisite and profound than they 
were actually felt. This deception operates, in a still greater 
degree, in the recollections of a person who was removed 
from the scenes and objects of early interest at the very 
period of the utmost prevalence and enthusiasm of that in- 
terest, and who, having never seen them since, did not gra- 
dually lose the emphasis of the feeling by familiarity with 
its objects. To have grown forty years older in the habitual 
acquaintance with things and persons that delighted or awed 
us at the age of ten or twelve, or of similar things and per- 
sons, would have given a vastly different character to the 
remembered aspects which those objects presented to us in 
our youth, from that character with which they would be 
recalled to our imagination as the enchanting forms of a 
vision, which in the early morning of our life was shut up 
from our view for ever. In this latter case, the retrospec- 
tions of a mind like that of Mrs. Grant inevitably turn in 
some degree into poetry ; and in the work before us it could 
not depend on her will, or her most conscientious veracity, 
to avoid a certain fulness of embellishment, especially in 



ATJTHOB S EAELY LIFE AND PEELINGS. 253 

delineating the characters of her early friends and neigh- 
bours, for which her pencil might not have found colours 
quite so rich, if her residence had permanently continued, 
and this work had been written, in the state of Vermont. 
At the same time we must say, that there are so many lines 
firmly drawn, and so many things true to general nature in 
the representation of particulars differing strangely in 
specific modification from what we have been accustomed to 
witness, that every reader will be satisfied of the substantial 
fidelity of the whole of this very interesting and original 
series of delineations. 

Notwithstanding the new and striking views of nature 
and human society unfolded in the book, one of the most 
interesting portions of its contents is the account, inter- 
mingled with them, of the author's early life and feelings. 
Her father was a Scotch subaltern officer, in a regiment 
that served many years in America, in the old times of the 
wars between the British settlements and the Trench and 
Indians of Canada. He was accompanied by his wife and 
daughter, at a time when the latter was too young to retain 
any remembrance of her native country ; and he was sta- 
tioned a good while about Albany, 170 miles north of New 
York, and at Port Oswego on Lake Ontario. At Albany 
they were introduced to Mrs. Schuyler, the widow of Colonel 
Schuyler, the son of a gentleman of that name, who induced 
and accompanied the visit to England of those Indian chiefs, 
mentioned in the " Spectator" as one of the principal London 
shows of that time. Either this elder Mr. Schuyler, or his 
immediate ancestors, had emigrated from Holland, and 
ranked among the most wealthy and respectable settlers in 
the Province of New York, and among the most zealously 
loyal subjects of the British government. As his residence 
was on the frontier of the country belonging to the Mo- 
hawks, or Eive Nations, at that time probably the most 
powerful of all the tribes of the aborigines, he was the 
principal medium of intercourse between that formidable 
community and the province, and the principal preservative 
of peace and amity. "When the Erench in Canada became 
powerful enough, in conjunction with the Indian tribes in 
their alliance, to commence a system, and to indicate the 
most ambitious designs, of hostility and encroachment, it 



254 AMERICA BEFORE THE REVOLUTION". 

was felt to be of the utmost importance to the province to 
retain the friendship of the Mohawks; among whom the 
[French intriguers, or rather we should say negotiators, had 
already been assiduous to propagate the notion that the 
English were a contemptible nation, a company of mere 
traders, inhabiting an insignificant island. Mr. Schuyler 
judged that far the best expedient would be for a number of 
the chiefs to visit England, in order to have immediate evi- 
dence of its power and magnificence, and to receive the 
respectful attentions of its government. It was found very 
difficult to persuade them to this undertaking ; but at length 
they consented, on the positive condition that their " bro- 
ther Philip, who never told a lie, nor spoke without think- 
ing," should accompany them, with which he reluctantly 
complied. The measure had the desired effect ; the sachems 
were kindly and respectfully treated by Qaeen Anne and all 
her court ; on their return to America they called a solemn 
council of their nation, and made such representations, that 
the Mohawks continued the firm allies of the British state 
and settlers, — through their intercourse with whom however 
their numbers and their independence were gradually dimi- 
nishing, till by the time that the English power was 
annihilated, they had sunk into comparative insignificance. 
In describing the reception of the chiefs in England, the 
writer makes some very just remarks on the proper mode of 
treating observant and thoughtful barbarians, such as these 
were, when they happen to visit a civilized country. 

The understanding and the virtues of Mr. Schuyler must 
have been of a very high order of excellence ; and these 
qualities appear to have been inherited by his son, the 
husband of the lady who makes so distinguished a figure in 
this work. He became, in his turn, the chief manager and 
conciliator between the province and the race who saw 
their ancient empire of woods suffering an unceasing and 
progressive invasion by the multiplying colony of strangers. 
In these and all his other benevolent employments, he had 
a most able coadjutor in his wife ; who was his cousin, and 
had in a great measure been educated by his father, whose 
fond partiality she had early engaged by extraordinary indi- 
cations of intelligence and worth. It was not very long 
after this lady became a widow, and when she was past the 



DESCEIPTION OF ALBANY. 255 

age of sixty, that our author was introduced into her house, 
where her reflective disposition, her passion for reading, and 
the interest she took in listening to the conversation of 
elder peoole, soon rendered her a great favourite. She 
attained to such a degree of intimacy and confidence, that 
Mrs. Schuyler when not engaged in important affairs, would 
spend hours in conversing with her and instructing her, 
and in some of these conversations would relate to her 
many particulars of her own history, of that of her deceased 
relatives, and that of the colony : hence the writer became 
qualified to relate various transactions in the family, and in 
the province, of a period antecedent to her personal know- 
ledge. 

The first part of the work is an ample description of the 
town of Albany and its vicinity ; the site, the surrounding 
country, the romantic recesses between the hills, the banks 
of the great river Hudson, the manners of the inhabitants, 
and their whole social economy, as all these things appeared 
to the author, are exhibited in the most lively and pic- 
turesque manner ; and the whole forms, to us, a surprisingly 
outlandish scene. It is impossible for us to give any just 
idea of this most interesting description ; but the following 
are some of its prominent features. The children and young 
people, beginning as early as the age of six or seven were 
formed, by themselves as it should seem (it does not appear 
that they were allotted by their parents), into a number of 
little classes or companies for the mere purposes of friend- 
ship and co-operation in pursuits and amusements ; each 
company consisting of an equal number of boys and girls, 
acknowledging one of their number of each sex, as leaders, 
and holding a kind of convivial meeting at particular times 
in the year. "Within these companies began very early 
those attachments which commonly led to marriage, and it 
was regarded as not very honourable to marry out of the 
company. In a new and rising settlement, the marriages 
were of course very early, often when the parties had not 
passed the age of sixteen or seventeen. When a youth was 
anxious to attain this object, the usual expedient for pro- 
viding the requisite resources was to go on a trading adven- 
ture among the Indian nations ; his father furnishing him 
with a canoe, and money for lading it with the articles most 



256 AMEEICi. BEFORE THE REVOLUTION". 

in request among those tribes. A most entertaining account 
is given of the usual severe toils and hazards of this enter- 
prise ; and of the strange transformation of the boy into the 
gravity, the prudence, and the dignified deportment of the 
man, which is often effected by the care, the foresight, the 
self-command, and the courage which he has been compelled 
to exert during even one expedition of this kind. "When 
the young people rashly married before any provision had 
been made, the parents of both the parties very composedly 
met in consultation, and the family that happened to have 
the more property took the young pair home ; the young 
man then commenced his trading expeditions, and the young 
people and the old people often continued to live together 
with mutual satisfaction many years after they had ample 
means for a separate competency, the ancients being as 
fond of their grandchildren as they had ever been of their 
own. All the families had negroes, but these slaves were 
treated with as much kindness as if they had been equals ; 
they were bred up in the house, and their mothers had very 
great influence, not to say authority, in the family, and over 
their master's children. When a negro child was a few 
years old, it was formally given to one of the children of the 
family, who was thenceforth considered as its master or 
mistress, and its patron and friend ; the two children grew 
up in the most affectionate habits, and there were innumer- 
able instances of the negro young men braving the most 
extreme perils to defend or assist their young masters. Yet 
all this time there was, in the whites, an invariable perfect 
conviction of a vast and insuperable barrier being placed 
by nature between them and the African race ; this feeling 
operated so powerfully, that before the arrival of British 
troops in Albany, only one mulatto was remembered to have 
been born there, and he was regarded as an anomalous and 
almost a monstrous creature. Almost the whole of the in- 
habitants are represented to have been orderly, indus- 
trious, friendly, and in short exceedingly pure in their 
general morals ; the correctness of the description, as to one 
branch of morals at least, is strongly supported by the very 
curious account of the astonishment, the general mortifica- 
tion, and the alarm, caused in the town by a single instance 
of seduction in one of the middling families, and this was 



STATE OF SOCIETY IN ALBANY. 257 

effected by a British officer who was entertained there. As 
an odd exception to the general character of virtue and good 
order, the writer honestly mentions a custom similar to one 
that prevailed in Sparta, — a licensed practice of petty thefts 
among the young men. It was requisite to take the utmost 
care of pigs and poultry, while all other things might be left 
exposed with entire safety. It was thought fair to belabour 
the thief, if caught in the fact ; but no real criminality 
seems to have been imputed to it ; it was considered as an 
established privilege of the youth, and all but the gravest 
part of the community were too willing to applaud the most 
dexterous performer for such ingenious tricks as those of 
which our author relates one or two. The young men were 
not allowed to join in these frolics, as they were called, after 
they were married, which to some of them is said to have 
been no small mortification. 

The young people, though brought up to acquire so early 
a spirit of enterprise and independence, practised the great- 
est deference to their parents. Law or punishment was 
scarcely ever heard of in the town. In the rare case of a 
negro proving incorrigibly refractory, he was sold to Jamaica ; 
and this transaction excited a far more melancholy emotion 
in the whole population, than the execution of a dozen 
criminals at once excites in our metropolis. The description 
of the summer excursions of the people of Albany, leads us 
into the most delightful scenes of wildness and simplicitv, 
and displays that romantic mixture of cultivated and unci- 
vilised life (though with a preponderance of the former), 
and that contrast of garden with boundless forest, which 
must be a transient state of moral and physical nature in 
any country. 

A sufficient number of specific facts are given, to attest 
the truth, in substance, of our author's representation of the 
virtuous and happy condition of this community ; but there 
are also some other facts tending to prove that their praises 
are a little indebted to the rekindling glow of the writer's 
primeval fancy and sensibility. For at the period to which 
the description relates, the settlement had been a good 
while infested by something beyond all comparison more 
pernicious than the wolves of the desert ; by the military 
from. Europe, whose officers had taken indefatigable pains to 

8 



258 AMERICA BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 

deprave the notions, manners, and morals of the young 
people, — a much more easy exploit, than to vanquish the 
French and the Indians on the Lakes. By a varnish of ele- 
gance and a froth of gaiety, by ridicule of the primitive 
habits of the old sober-sided settlers, and an ostentation of 
knowing the world, and at last by the introduction of balls 
and plays, they created a mania in the young people, which 
drove them to rush into dissipation like a torrent, in scorn 
of the authority and remonstrances of the elder inhabitants, 
and reduced their zealous, affectionate, but too sensitive and 
self-important minister, to a melancholy which was believed 
to have betrayed him to a voluntary death. All this had 
taken place before the time of our author's residence; and 
though the frenzy had in a good measure subsided, it is 
impossible to suppose it could have left a state of manners 
altogether so unsophisticated as our author would represent. 

In describing the comfortable situation of the negroes in 
this settlement, she by no means aims at raising any plea 
for the slave-trade or slavery ; she means merely to state the 
fact, that in Albany they were kindly treated and compara- 
tively happy. — We must notice the striking inconsistency 
between the sentence in which she says that " two or three 
slaves were the greatest number that each family ever pos- 
sessed," and her mention in another place that Mrs. Schuyler 
had eleven, and her information that each child of a family 
had an appropriated negro. 

It would be in vain for us to attempt any abstract of the 
history of Mrs. Schuyler. She was evidently an extraordi- 
nary and a most estimable person ; and though so few of us 
ever heard of her before, her fame, during her time, was 
spread over the northern provinces of America, and far 
among the savage tribes ; nor should we have ventured to 
gainsay, if her biographer had assserted that the queen of 
Sheba, even after her visit to Jerusalem, was less qualified 
to counsel or to govern than this lady. She was consulted 
by traders, plauters, governors, and generals ; she was re- 
vered by soldiers, by Indians, by missionaries, and even by 
the most depraved persons that ever came within the sphere 
of her acquaintance.' Perhaps the only man that ever offered 
her an insult was General Lee, at that time a captain in the 
English service, who in marching past her estates towards 
Ticonderoga, hastily and harshly demanded certain supplies 



CHAEACTEE OF MES. SCHTJYLEE. 259 

for the troops, which she would have been of all persons the 
readiest to furnish voluntarily ; but when he was brought 
back wounded from the fatal attack on that fortress, and 
kindly accommodated and attended in her house till his 
recovery, " ne swore, in his vehement manner, that he was 
sure there would be a place reserved for Madame in heaven, 
though no other woman should be there, and that he should 
wish for nothing better than to share her final destiny." 
Both during the colonel's life, and after she was left alone, 
her house was the grand centre of attraction to all persons 
in the province who were devising anything for the public 
welfare, or had even difficult private affairs of importance 
on their hands ; nor can we refuse to believe that it was 
well worth their while to travel very many leagues, even 
over snow and ice, to take the benefit of so much cool and 
comprehensive prudence as our author (though so young an 
observer when residing there) has given us the means of 
being assured they would find in that house. 

A great number of pleasing details, some of them very 
curious, are given of the domestic system, the hospitalities, 
the young inmates entertained and educated in the family, 
the manners of the negroes, and the agricultural arrange- 
ments. Every thing relating to Mrs. Schuyler's personal 
character and habits is extremely interesting ; and we do 
not believe that any of her friends could have given a more 
lively description of her manners, or a stronger exhibition 
of the leading principles of her character, her eminently 
sound judgment, her incessantly active beneficence, and it 
is very gratifying to add, her habitual piety. Her literary 
attainments were, for such a state of society, respectable ; 
she could speak several of the European languages, and had 
read the best English authors of the popular class; she 
always continued to read as much as the very active 
economy of her life would permit. But the wisdom which 
commanded such general respect was chiefly the result of a 
long exercise of a vigorous understanding on practical 
affairs and real characters, aided too, as we must have it, 
and as Mrs. Grant indeed represents, by the society of her 
enlightened husband, who was considerably her senior, and 
was also strenuously occupied, during his whole life, in pro- 
moting the public good. They are described as having 

s2 



260 AMERICA BEFORE THE REVOLUTION". 

been congenial in a very uncommon degree; their long 
union was eminently happy, and the manner in which the 
survivor at once evinced, and endeavoured to conceal, the 
excesses of her grief for the loss, was more allied to poetry 
than probably any thing that happened before or after in 
the back settlements of New York. 

Having no children of her own, this lady in effect adopted 
a great number of children, in succession, partly those of 
her relations ; but in directing their education she did not, 
like divers sensible ladies that we have heard of, suffer her 
whole time and attention to be engrossed by it, and exalt 
the error into a merit. She knew that a matron lessens 
her importance in the estimate of children, by appearing to 
be always at their service ; she felt that a constant course 
of intellectual and religious discipline was due to her own 
mind, and that a person of sense and property has also 
duties of a more general nature, than those relating 
exclusively to her own immediate circle. 

What we should deem perhaps the principal fault of the 
book, is too much length of detail concerning the nume- 
rous collateral relations of Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler. Except 
in the instance of the widow of that gentleman's brother, it 
is impossible to take much interest in a long and perplexing 
enumeration of persons and personal histories, of no im- 
portance in themselves, and serving only to spread out, but 
to spread out by interrupting and dispersing the memoir of 
the principal character ; the accident of their being related 
to her, forming the sole claim of most of them to be so 
much as mentioned. 

Before the contest between the American States and the 
mother country had taken a very serious turn, Mrs. S., with 
many other intelligent colonists, felt a perfect conviction 
that the connexion could not continue long, and would be 
utterly useless to both countries while it lasted. She re- 
tained however much of the ancient attachment to England, 
but was too highly respected by both parties to experience 
any indignity, or material inconvenience, in the military 
competition of which she lived to see the commencement, 
but not the close : she died in 1788 or 1789, not much 
short of the age of eighty. 

The house of this distinguished family having been fre- 



THE INDIAN TETBES. 261 

quented by the principal commanders in the Canadian wars, 
short sketches are given of some of their characters, toge- 
ther with narratives of some of the most remarkable of 
their proceedings . especially of the fatal attempt on Ticon- 
deroga, in which the author's father was present, and of the 
bold and intelligent schemes executed at Fort Oswego by 
Colonel Duncan, a brother of the late Admiral Lord 
Duncan 

A very large proportion of these volumes relates to the 
Indian tribes, and affords many most interesting descrip- 
tions and observations. The author used often to visit 
some detached families of the Mohawks (which denomination . 
she seems, in one or two instances, to apply to the whole 
of the Five Nations, though the Mohawks were only one 
tribe of that league) that encamped in the neighbourhood 
of Albany during the summer, and kept up a friendly and 
intimate intercourse with the settlers. Some of these In- 
dians were Christians ; and a very pleasing account is given 
of the benevolent efforts which had long been made by 
some of the families, especially the female part of them, to 
insinuate Christian knowledge and habits among these wild 
but not unreflecting tribes. 

In the course of a journey to Lake Ontario, our author 
was presented at the court, or at least in the palace, of the 
most famous warrior of the Five Nations ; and she gives a 
most amusing account of his manners, and of her feelings 
on the occasion. In addition to what she saw of the In- 
dians herself, she eagerly listened to the innumerable 
accounts of them given by the traders and the military men 
who had been among them. From the impression made by 
the boldness and the wildness of the Indian character on 
her young imagination, we do not wonder to see a strong 
tincture of favourable partiality in her representations and 
reasonings concerning those nations ; yet we rather wonder 
to see, in a lady's description, the epithets " high-souled 
and generous " applied to these heroes, just two pages after 
the account of the most miserable state of slavery and 
oppression in which their wives are uniformly held. No 
one is disposed to deny that there are certain modifications 
of the savage character analogous to virtue in such tribes, 
especially perhaps the Mohawks ; but it is now quite too 



262 AMERICA BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 

late in the day for us to accept any estimate of the condition 
of any savage people whatever, as, on the whole, otherwise 
than profoundly depraved and miserable. 

Our author gives a very striking view of the process by 
which the American tribes have lost their independence, 
and are very fast losing even their existence, in consequence 
of their intercourse with their civilised neighbours. Her 
explanation of this point is introduced by some general 
speculations on the progress of civilisation in Europe, 
which should rather have been reserved to be rendered 
more simple and precise by maturer consideration. 

The roguery of the American citizens, in the district now 
called Yermont, deprived the author's father of a valuable 
portion of land, several years previously to the period at 
which he would have been certain to lose it as a loyalist. 
Nothing to be sure can be much more odious and disgusting 
than that system of deception, chicane, and rascality, which 
she describes as having overspread that part of the country, 
and driven her father to desert his plantation, and return 
to Europe, even before he had lost all hope of supporting 
his claims. We have not much to object to, in her many 
spirited observations on the American character and 
government. But we cannot very well comprehend the 
reasonableness of those animadversions on the assumption 
of independence by the American States, which seem to 
proceed on the principle that either they should always 
have continued dependent, or should have waited till 
England should voluntarily set them free. The former is 
obviously absurd ; and how many thousand years must 
they have waited to realize the latter ? Nor can we work 
ourselves into any thing like an animated sympathy with 
certain high-flown sentiments of patriotism, which, in 
remonstrance against the desire to emigrate from a land of 
taxes, would seem to go far towards telling a man who is 
anxiously considering how his family are to live, that the 
" proud recollection that he is in the country that has pro- 
duced Milton and Newton," is a much better thing than to 
have plenty of good corn, bacon, cabbage, &c. &c, in such 
a low-minded place as America. 

There is one passage relative to the Puritan settlers in 
the northern provinces, which we read with surprise : — 






THE PUBITAK SETTLERS. 263 

" The people of New England left the mother country as ban- 
ished from it by what they considered oppression ; came over 
foaming with religious and political fury, and narrowly missed 
having the most artful and able of demagogues, Cromwell him- 
self, for their leader and guide. They might be compared to 
lava, discharged by the fury of internal combustion, from the 
bosom of the commonwealth, while inflamed by contending ele- 
ments, This lava, every one acquainted with the convulsions 
of nature must know, takes a long time to cool ; and when at 
length it is cooled, turns to a substance hard and barren, that 
long resists the kindly influence of the elements, before its sur- 
face resumes the appearance of beauty and fertility. Such were 
the almost literal effects of political convulsions, aggravated by 
a fiery and intolerant zeal for their own mode of worship, on 
these self-righteous colonists." — Vol. I., p. 197. 

Is it possible that some idle partiality to the House of 
Stuart can have had the influence to prompt this strange 
piece of absurdity ? Whatever has prompted, it does really 
seem very foolish not to know, that the emigrants in ques- 
tion were the most devout and virtuous part of the English 
nation, and were glad to escape to a melancholy desert from 
the pillories and prisons of such tutelar saints of Britain as 
Laud. 

"While noticing faults, we may apprize the reader that 
these volumes, apparently from haste, are written with much 
carelessness and incorrectness of expression. But he will 
find everywhere great animation, and ease, and variety ; and 
in many places elegance and energy. The descriptions are 
beautiful, and various, and new, in the highest degree : we 
will for conclusion transcribe one of them ; we might tran- 
scribe a third part of the book. 

"In one place, where we were surrounded by hills, with 
swamps lying between them, there seemed to be a general con- 
gress of wolves, who answered each other from opposite hills, in 
sounds the most terrific. Probably the terror which all savage 
animals have at fire was exalted into fury, by seeing so many 
enemies, whom they durst not attack. The bull-frogs, the 
harmless, the hideous inhabitants of the swamps, seemed deter- 
mined not to be out-done, and roared a tremendous bass to this 
bravura accompaniment. This was almost too much for my love 
of the terrible sublime : some women, who were our fellow- 
travellers, shrieked with terror ; and finally the horrors of that 



264 southey's chronicle of the cid. 

night were ever after held in awful remembrance by all who 
shared them."— Pp. 117, 118. 



SOUTHEY'S CHKONICLE OE THE CID. 

Chronicle of the Cid. From the Spanish. By Eobert Southey. 
4to. 1809. 

During the seven centuries that have elapsed since the 
death of the Cid, there has probably never been a time, till 
within the last seven months, when a large volume of half- 
legendary history of his adventures would have had any 
great chance of obtaining much attention in England. 
Just now is the time, or rather four or five months since was 
the time, for calling some of the chiefs of the ancient 
Spanish chivalry from their long slumber, in order to assist 
us to extend backward into former ages our interest in the 
heroic character of that nation ; a nation in which we had 
begun to hope that almost every nobleman and every 
peasant was going to perform such exploits as those of the 
Cid, in a more righteous cause than almost any in which 
that hero had the fortune to display his valour. "We are 
never content to confine our admiration to the present 
spirit and actions of an individual, or of a people, that has 
become a favourite with us, if we can find or fancy anything 
deserving to be admired in the retrospect of its earlier 
times. Besides, when a people is entering on a grand and 
most perilous enterprise, in which it is evident that any 
thing less than the most heroic spirit must fail, the martial 
names and achievements of its ancestors have a certain 
influence — a greater, indeed, than is warranted by the 
history of national character — on our hopes of its success. 
"When summoned to vindicate the national cause, the men 
surely will not hide themselves from danger among the 
very monuments of their heroic progenitors ; they cannot 
be content to read and recite the stories of invincible cham- 
pions, of their own names, and, by their nativity, reflecting 
lustre on their own villages and towns, and yet see these 
towns and villages commanded and plundered by bands of 






NEGLECT OP RELIGIOUS CONSIDEEATIONS. 265 

foreign invaders ; they cannot endure to see their country 
and themselves in a state to make them abhor the recollec- 
tion that such renowned heroes were their forefathers. Is 
it possible that the Spaniards of the present day, recalling 
to mind the gallant hostility which once expelled the 
Moors, can quietly sink down under the domination of the 
modern Saracens ? It has occurred to our thoughts num- 
berless times, while going through this volume, what an 
intolerable place their country would soon become, to the 
usurping enemy, if the martial spirit which blazed all over 
it in the eleventh century could be now rekindled ; and 
what a dreadful impression would be made on the Gallic 
squadrons by even a very small army of such men as this 
Hodrigo Diaz, and those that fought by his side. The very 
same reflections have occurred, no doubt, to multitudes of the 
Spanish nation, within the last few months; but, notwithstand- 
ing all such reflections, and the momentary ardour they may 
in some instances possibly have excited, it would appear that 
one more proof remained to be given, that, in these times, 
the tombs, the histories, and the splendid fables of valiant 
ancestors have lost all their power against a daring invader. 

As all our readers, as well as ourselves, talk less or more 
every day of the events in Spain, which have lately 
awakened the strongest interest throughout the whole 
civilized world, it will, perhaps, be permitted us to take this 
occasion of suggesting a few considerations relative to those 
events, and to the manner in which they have been viewed 
and celebrated in this country. 

"With regard to the manner in which those eevnts have 
been beheld and discussed, it is painful to us, as believers 
in Christianity, to have to observe that it may be doubted 
whether there has ever been a grand affair, involving a most 
momentous crisis, and creating a profound and universal 
solicitude, which was contemplated in this country with 
any thing so much like a general consent to forget all reli- 
gious considerations. The anxiety which we have fully 
shared with all around us, for the success of the Spanish 
people, could not prevent us from sometimes thoughtfully 
observing in what terms anxiety, speculation, or triumph, 
were expressed by veteran statesmen, young political philo- 
sophers, many divines, the whole tribe almost of journalists, 



266 southet's chkonicle or the cid. 

and a very large proportion of the mass of the people ; and 
it has been exceedingly striking to perceive the general 
willingness to exempt the G-overnor of the world from all 
exercise of care or interference. We really believe we have 
hardly met with one political or military calculation on the 
powers and probabilities in this great commotion, in which 
the fact of an Almighty Providence, if any accident could 
have suggested it to the calculator's thoughts, would have 
been of half as much importance in his account, as one 
regiment of soldiers more or less, or one cargo of ammuni- 
tion. But in general, the thought seems not to have 
occurred at all ; the plans, the reasonings, the auguries, the 
exultation, and the fears, have all been entertained and 
revolved under an entire failure to recollect that an invi- 
sible Being has ever decided the course and events of 
human affairs. And the benefit of this exclusion of every 
thought relating to that Being has been very great to the 
confident class of speculators, as it has simplified their cal- 
culations ; the interference of an invisible power is a thing 
so independent and mysterious, that it is very difficult to 
adjust its place and value among the elements of the calcu- 
lation ; but let the whole matter be reduced to a plain 
account of so many men in arms against so many, and we 
go directly to the consequence without hesitation. 

We could not deem it a favourable omen, when we 
observed the general, and we think unequalled, prevalence 
in this Christian country, of so light an estimate of the 
dependence of human affairs on the Supreme Governor. 
Another very prominent circumstance has been the appa- 
rent renunciation of all concern about the stability or 
subversion of the power of the E-omish church. In times 
that are past, yet not so long past but we ourselves can 
remember them, this most impious, tyrannic, and cruel 
power was regarded as one of the most pernicious and 
hateful things on the face of the whole earth ; and its 
grand instrument, the Inquisition, was considered as pre- 
cisely the utmost reach of diabolical contrivance and ma- 
lignity. English Protestants could not hear the words 
Popery and Inquisition, without instantly thinking of crowds 
of racked, or burning, or bleeding martyrs ; of numerous 
other pious and holy men perishing in dungeons and 






ANTICIPATED TALL OF POPEBY. 267 

deserts ; of soldiers, stimulated by priests to merit Leaven 
by absolutely wantoning in the torments and death of 
women and children ; of midnight spies ; of domestics ex- 
horted and threatened into informers ; of the general inter- 
diction of divine knowledge by severe punishments for 
reading the Eible ; of an infinite swarm of lazy, bigoted, 
and vicious ecclesiastics ; of the worship of saints and of 
images ; and of a train of follies and impieties, in doctrine 
and ceremony, far too numerous to be named. Nothing 
inspired greater delight than any symptoms of the approach- 
ing fall of this most execrable power ; our anticipations of 
the prosperity or decline of any of the political states of 
Europe depended very much, perhaps more than on any 
other thing whatever, on the degree in which they respec- 
tively assisted or opposed that impious and cruel hierarchy ; 
while many devout and learned writers, and a multitude of 
their readers, rejoiced to discern any coincidence between 
passing events and the prophecies of the fall of Antichrist. 
In looking round on the states that support this enormous 
usurpation on the liberty, the reason, and the conscience of 
mankind, it was notorious that Spain and Portugal were 
the most faithful subjects of the slavery and abettors of 
the tyranny. When the recent movement in Spain became 
so extensive as apparently to promise to raise the whole 
effective population in arms, we began to entertain a most 
earnest sentiment, something between the desponding 
desire and the hope, that now, at last, not only a repelling 
boundary, much more lofty and impervious than the Py- 
renees, would be raised against the irruptions, on one side 
at least, of the grand tyrant of Europe, but also that in 
some way or other, the strongest hold of Popery would be 
eventually shaken into ruins. It was not to be expected 
that any direct measures, for reducing the inveterate ascen- 
dancy of the Popish establishment, would form a part of 
the first revolutionary proceedings. But, as we trusted 
that all the genius and knowledge in the country would be 
called forth by the great occasion, and that the most able, 
enlightened, and liberal men would soon come to occupy 
the vacated powers of government, we flattered ourselves 
they would be too wise, as statesmen, to be bigoted as 
Catholics. We presumed they could not but feel that the 



268 sottthey's chkonicle or the old. 

freedom which deserved to be sought at the expense of a 
prolonged and direful conflict with the greatest military 
power the world ever saw, would remain imperfect, disho- 
noured, and in a great measure useless, unless something 
were at least gradually effected, for reducing that despotism 
of superstition, which would else be a fatal obstacle to all 
grand schemes of national improvement. "We thought that 
the great commotion, which would excite throughout the 
whole nation twenty times more bold thought and strong 
passion than had prevailed in it at any one period for 
centuries past, would give such a shock to the dominion 
of superstition, as to loosen and crack all its impositions 
and institutions. And why should we forbear to add that 
we had a new ground of hope, when this liberal and Pro- 
testant nation determined to put forth all its immense 
strength in aid of the Spanish cause, and when it was 
avowed in both countries that without this aid that cause 
could not triumph. It was quite natural to conclude that 
this Protestant nation, which had but very recently testified 
its antipathy to Popery with an ardour of zeal almost 
flaming into fanaticism, would accompany this assistance, if 
not with the stipulated condition, at least with the most 
powerful recommendation of some remission of the rigours 
of spiritual slavery ; a recommendation which, under such 
circumstances, could not have failed to be effectual. 

Thus, we had begun to indulge anticipations of momentous 
changes in favour of intellect, conscience, and religion, to 
arise from the great movement in assertion of national 
liberty. "When, however, in the simplicity of our hearts, we 
began to give vent to some of these imaginations, in such 
little humble circles of politicians as we can be supposed to 
be admitted in, we found our notions received with a smile 
of contempt. We were told that these are not times for 
recalling the antiquated, trifling controversies of divines 
about Popery and Protestantism; that enlightened politi- 
cians are now of opinion that the iniquitous institutions of 
the superstition of any country ought to be held sacred and 
inviolate in that country ; that if a few Protestants have 
sometimes got themselves into the dungeons of the Inqui- 
sition, it was their own fault, as they might have gone 
quietly to mass like their neighbours ; that, in short, any 



THE PEKINSTJLAE WAE. 269 

sucli concerns as that of securing such things as liberty of 
religious profession and worship, are altogether beneath the 
notice of states, and those who preside over them, in great 
conjunctures of their affairs. "We were rather plainly told, 
that such grand events as those of the present time, are not 
for the understandings of persons who can never advert to 
any great subject without making it little by some conceit 
about Providence, and whose first grovelling anxiety and 
last, in political commotions and revolutions, fixes itself on 
no greater an object than what it calls the advancement of 
pure religion, — meaning perhaps, in truth, nothing better 
than the progress of Methodism. 

On this, we betook ourselves for a while to the silent 
observation of events and opinions, and soon perceived that 
we had indeed entertained a very fantastic kind of senti- 
ments. Except a number of religionists of the most 
antiquated stamp, nobody seemed to recollect any harm 
that Popish intolerance had ever done ; the Inquisition was 
almost become venerable, as a fortress of the faith against 
modern infidelity ; at any rate, it was a powerful support of 
the ancient established order of things ; a most bigoted 
tribe of priests had our cordial license to hunt heretics, and 
keep the people in the most wretched and debasing igno- 
rance, if they would only make sanguinary addresses (many 
of them were in the most savage style) to rouse the popula- 
tion to war. Let but the enemy be destroyed, and the 
conquerors might celebrate their victory, for anything our 
nation seemed to care, with an auto da fe. The very for- 
tresses that Englishmen might shed their blood in recover- 
ing from the enemy, might be allowed to become, the 
following year or month, the prisons of those who wished 
for liberty to profess the faith of their generous deliverers. 
All were enthusiastic, and very justly so, for the rescue of 
Spain and Portugal ; governors and people, debaters, news- 
writers, reviewers, all breathed fire against Attila and his 
barbarians ; and when these invaders were exterminated, the 
glorious result was to be — what was it to be ? what in all 
reason ought it to be ? As far as we could understand, it 
was to be a full restoration of that order of things under 
which those countries had for ages invariably presented the 
most melancholy spectacle of imprisoned mind, of tyrannic 



270 southet's cheonicle or the cid. 

superstition, and of national prostration, in all Europe. 
"We say a full restoration, for there was not, that we 
remember, a single particular of the whole wretched 
economy specified for reformation, in the event of success, 
or as a condition of our powerful and expensive co-operation 
to secure it. 

That great improvement of modern times, the division of 
labour, may have extended much further than we were 
aware. In some past periods, there have been in England 
politicians and statesmen of very great note in their day, 
who assumed it as part of their vocation, to promote, to the 
utmost of their power, in their transactions with allies, the 
security of conscientious men and reforming reasoners, 
against the persecuting malice of a spiritual tyranny. It 
may be, that now the narrowed province of this class of men 
no longer includes this concern. This may be : — but then 
another thing also may be ; if they have excluded from theii 
department a concern which the Divine Governor has 
included within their duty, it may be that schemes and 
enterprizes, in professed vindication of liberty, are, on 
account of this indifference or contempt shown to the most 
sacred branch of liberty, destined to fail. The division of 
labour might be carried so far as to be fatal ; if the officers 
and crew of a damaged ship at sea should choose to say, 
that their business is to navigate the vessel and defend it 
against the enemy, and that as to the leak, which is fast 
filling the hold, that belongs to the shipwright's business in 
the port, the consequence would not be very doubtful. "We 
began to fear, a good many months since, that such a fate 
awaited our grand undertaking in favour of Spain. Eor the 
last twenty years, it had appeared most evident, that Provi- 
dence was hastening the fall of incomparably the most 
dreadful tyrant that ever arrogated the dominion of Europe, 
— the Popish superstition ; it had become the general per- 
suasion of wise and good men, both from examining the 
Scriptures and observing the course of events, that this 
divine process of emancipation, which had been so ardently 
longed and prayed for by millions of the devoutest and 
holiest men that ever inhabited the earth, would proceed 
rapidly to its completion ; and therefore it was impossible 
to repel the conviction, independently of all calculations of 



THE PE^LNSTTLAK WAK. 271 

comparative military forces, that the mightiest effort in the 
power of any nation to make, if a chief object of that effort 
was absolutely to maintain the Popish system in all its 
ancient rigour, must fail ; and that any other nation, especi- 
ally if a Protestant nation, lending its assistance on sucl 
terms as to adopt and promote this object, must eventually 
retire with disaster and humiliation. This object,, in its 
most decided form, was invariably avowed in Spain ; and as 
far as the public are yet informed, the whole resources of 
this country were pledged, without a stipulation or a 
remonstrance, against a system which would doom any 
advocate of pure religion to imprisonment, or tortures, or 
death. Our politicians may say it was not within their 
province, " not in their competence," to take account of any 
such matters ; but neither, therefore, was it permitted to be 
in their competence, with the whole vast means of this 
country at their disposal, to accomplish any part of the 
great political project. A most signal fatality has appeared 
to accompany every measure and movement ; the results are 
before us; Spain is overwhelmed, and our armies, after 
months and months of inefficiency and ostentation, are 
driven out under circumstances of the utmost affliction and 
mortification, and followed by the most bitter taunt that 
ever stuog this nation, that " in spite of the English, the 
Inquisition, the overgrown monkish establishments, and the 
oppressive privileges of the nobles, have ceased to exist in 
Spain." What a memorable fact it will be in the history of 
these times, that the enlightened nation, which had so long 
been the grand champion of Protestantism, should have 
justly incurred this poignant and triumphant reproach from 
a conqueror, who is himself a pretended Papist ! The won- 
der, however, will relate solely to the principles on which 
the enterprise was undertaken ; there will be no wonder at 
the consequence: if one of the most emphatic petitions 
which good men could have concurred to address to Heaven, 
for the Spanish people, would have been, that such institu- 
tions might fall, — and if the intimations of revelation 
combined with the recent and contemporary train of events, 
to give solemn signs that the Papal institutions were in fact 
just ready to fall, — what was the result to be reasonably 
apprehended, when a Protestant nation should undertake to 



272 southey's cheonicle op the cid. 

exert its utmost force, that, as connected with the other 
establishments of the unhappy people, these institutions 
might stand? Was it to be expected that out of pure 
favour to the English, as Protestants, the Supreme Disposer 
would suspend his operations for destroying the Popish 
domination ? 

"We gladly believe there are times yet to come, when 
politicians will be aware that the question, what monarch or 
what dynasty is to rule any particular portion of the earth, 
is an exceedingly trifling matter in the view of Him that 
governs it all, compared with the promotion or the repres- 
sion of the cause of pure Christianity. How many more 
disastrous calculations and events are to enrich our history 
with melancholy instruction for their benefit, remains to be 
seen ; and it is not difficult to imagine new occasions for 
practically trying, whether it is really a judicious principle in 
politics, for a Christian and Protestant nation to lend its 
force and sanction formally to maintain and consolidate the 
most pernicious and cruel superstitions of every country 
where it has an absolute or an influential power. This point 
should be decided ; and if all the experiments are to be 
made on an assumption of the affirmative, it is not too 
much to anticipate that the series may be very short, and 
that the result may be recorded on the monumental ruins of 
a great empire. 

Some readers may perhaps here allege, that the martial 
despot that has been successful, is also a supporter of super- 
stition ; that he inserted in the new constitution for Spain, 
framed at Bayonne, an article expressing that no religion 
but Popery should be legally tolerated, and that he carried 
this into effect in agreeing to the first article of capitulation 
jjroposed by the inhabitants of Madrid. "We may answer, 
first, it cannot reasonably surprise us, if the Divine Being 
should manifest a much severer indignation against the 
formal support of Popish superstition, by a nation long 
eminent for zealous Protestantism, than against even the 
same support by a nation long equally eminent for its 
zealous Popery. Secondly, though Napoleon does pretend, 
and in some degree practise, an adherence to the Romish 
church, yet all Europe sees that he is, in effect, its enemy 
and destroyer ; he treats some of its most sacred institutions 



A NATION IN ARMS NOT POSSIBLE. 273 

vitti contempt, and for his own purposes is gradually abo- 
lishing the various organs of power that made it so formid- 
able. As far, therefore, as an able, powerful, bad man, who 
does everything from motives of selfish policy and ambition, 
may be a fit agent, under the divine government, for break- 
ing up by degrees the dominion under which reason and 
conscience have so long been reduced to suffer, the present 
agitator of nations seems the right operator. 

TVe have thus endeavoured to explain how we soon began 
to despair, on a religious ground, of a cause, for the success 
of which our anxiety an a political reference, most warmly 
sympathized with tha; of our countrymen in general. "We 
will now venture one or two brief observations on the political 
grounds of hope, afforded by the first stages of the grand 
movement. 

That a nation in arms cannot be conquered, is perhaps a 
proposition, like many others that sound very well, of but 
little meaning. The thing cannot be realized ; there never 
can be a nation in arms. Say that the men capable of 
bearing arms, that is, not too young, nor too old, nor too 
unhealthy, are as much as a sixth part of the whole popula- 
tion ; this will indeed give a most formidable list in such a 
country as Spain. But then how evident it is, that only a 
slender minority of this enrolment wil] ever come into 
action. A very large proportion of these competent men 
must be employed in preparing the furniture of war for 
those who actually take the field ; a large proportion of 
them must attend to the indispensable concerns of agricul- 
ture ; millers, and numerous manufacturers and shopkeepers, 
must keep to their business, if the population is to be 
regularly supplied with the most direct necessaries ; many 
of the enumerated men must stay to take care of their sick, 
their aged, or their infant relatives : in a Catholic country a 
number are under ecclesiastical restriction ; a considerable 
number of men to write and print, are as necessary, in such 
a juncture, as men to fight ; many must be employed in 
every district, in concerns of council and police ; a number, 
in almost any imaginable war, will join the enemy, at any 
point were he has been signally successful. We will add 
only one other class, that is cowards, who positively will not 
fight at all, and whom it would require more than half of 

T 



274 southet's chronicle oe the cid. 

those that will fight, to attempt to hunt and capture and 
coerce into battle ; of these there naturally must be a very- 
large number in every nation of Europe ; and these, in addi- 
tion to their timidity, will generally be sceptical enough as 
to the necessity of the war itself; such concessions as they 
would have made, and as they think ought to have been 
made, rather than provoke so dreadful an extremity, would 
have averted it. 

We have heard commonly enough, of late, of five or six 
hundred thousand warriors being ready to march, or even of 
a " million of heroes panting to rush on the enemy, and 
resolved to conquer or perish ;" the absurdity of such 
flourishes might be apparent, on a moment's reflection, 
which is enough to convince us that though we may talk of 
" rising in a mass," and of a " nation in arms," it is in fact 
but a comparatively small proportion of the inhabitants 
physically capable of acting in arms, that can at any time, 
in any civilized country, be brought into military operation. 
Instead of the innumerable myriads, which many of us seemed 
to imagine would drive on like the moving sand of the 
Arabian desert, and absolutely overwhelm the first large 
French army that should venture to present its front in 
Spain ; it was very doubtful whether the Spanish nation, 
even if as generally inspired with patriotic ardour as it is 
possible for any nation to be, and carrying to its utmost 
practicable extent the principle of rising in a mass, could 
have met the invader with a force numerically equal to what 
he could without much difficulty bring, considering the 
immense number of his veterans at every moment in the 
posture of war, the authority and promptitude of his decrees 
of conscription, and the vast extent of populous territory 
over which those conscriptions operate. And as to the 
nature of this popular levy, it was to be considered what an 
uncouth element of armies it would continue to be for 
months, what a want there was of men of commanding mili- 
tary talents, to throw the rude though brave masses into 
system, and at the same time how soon their quality, and 
the capacity of their leaders, were likely to be brought to 
the test by the unremitting assault of their rapid *and perti- 
nacious enemy. It was also to be inquired, where were 
arsenals and magazines ? whence were half the requisite 



THE SPANISH PATRIOTS. 275 

number of fire-arms to be obtained ? for as to other arms 
there can be no greater folly than to talk of them. Possibly 
there are, in every country, a very small number of men so 
firm and so fierce that, without any other weapons than 
pikes, they would resolutely advance to the encounter with 
musketry and artillery ; but as to the generality of the men 
that armies must be composed of, we think their defeat is 
infallible, whatever their numbers may be, if under no other 
protection than their pikes they are confronted with lines of 
fire-arms. For, setting aside the real difference of power 
between the two kinds of weapons, setting aside too the 
effect of manoeuvres, the influence of imagination will be great 
and fatal. To unpractised troops, at least, guns seem some- 
thing more than mere weapons ; both by those that hold 
them, and those that meet them, it is almost felt as if they 
had a kind of formidable efficacy in themselves, their opera- 
tion is so totally different from any other instrument that 
can be wielded by human hands. The explosion, the flash, 
and the infliction of death, at a great distance, by a missile 
that cannot be seen or avoided, inspire in the possessor of 
the weapon a certain consciousness of being a much more 
powerful agent, than he could have been by an implement, 
which had no other force than just that which he could give 
it by the grasp and movement of his hand, and no effect at 
a distance. And this influence of imagination operates with 
double force on the man who is advancing against these 
fire-arms, while himself has only an inert piece of wood or 
iron ; he will look with despondency and contempt on his 
pointed stick, while the lines in his front seem to be arrayed 
in thunder and lightning, while he is startling at the frequent 
hiss of bullets, and seeing his companions begin to fall. 

But there would be no end of enumerating the disad- 
vantages under which the Spanish insurrection was to 
encounter such a tremendous invasion ; and, even admitting 
that insurrection to be as general and as enthusiastic as it 
was represented, a sanguine expectation of its success was 
probably entertained by very few of our countrymen, after 
it was ascertained to the conviction of all that Bonaparte 
had nothing to fear on the side of Germany, though the 
earnest desire did sometimes assume the language of con- 
fident hope. Still, however, it was not the less certain, that 

t 2 



276 soumEY's chronicle of the cid. 

a great and resolute nation might accomplish wonders 
against the largest regular armies and the most experienced 
commanders ; as history was at hand to show, by various 
examples, and eminently above all others, that of the war of 
the French revolution. Certainly, indeed, there was an 
ominous difference in point of genius and system between 
the leaders of the war against Spain and the commanders 
who had invaded France ; the highest genius, however, 
cannot work literally by magic ; and if the French legions 
could have been commanded by even still greater talents 
than those actually at their head, it was evident they must 
receive a dreadful shock if they were to be fallen upon by 
several hundred thousand men, impelled by the same enthu- 
siasm of valour and obstinacy of perseverance which first 
confounded and finally routed the grand armies of Bruns- 
wick, Clairfait, and Saxe-Coburg; in the varieties of the 
conflict, besides, all the latent genius in the patriotic army 
would flame out, and declare whom nature had appointed, 
in contempt of all laws of rank, to the command. But then 
there must be an adequate cause to inspire the popular 
levies with this heroic fury, which should persist to burn 
and to fight, in spite of all checks and disasters, in fortress 
and in field, whether the battalions were in order or confusion, 
whether they found themselves separated into small bodies, 
or thrown together in a ponderous mass. And it might 
fairly be assumed, at the commencement of the Spanish 
revolution, that no less cause, no other cause, than that 
which had produced this grand effect in the French levy 
en masse, would now produce it in that of Spain. All 
know that the cause which operated thus on the revolutionary 
armies of France was the passion for liberty, continually 
inflamed to a state of enthusiasm, by having the object 
most simply and conspicuously placed in view. The object 
was placed before them, if we may so express it, " full- 
orbed ;" it was liberty, not in the partial sense merely of 
being freed from the power and interference of the foreign 
monarchs who had sent the armies they were combating, 
and whose design, they had little doubt, it was to divide 
France among them as a conquest, and its people as slaves ; 
but in the animating sense, also, of being no longer the 
subjects of a despot at home. A general could circulate 






THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 277 

through his camp an address like the following : " Brave 
citizens, soldiers of liberty ! prepare for battle ; to drive 
these legions of Austria and Prussia from your country, 
which is henceforth to be the land of freedom. Tour 
ancestors, in such times as those of Louis XIV., were 
sent to war on these very plains, at the mandate of a cruel 
tyrant and his detestable minions ; while they fought with 
a forlorn and melancholy valour, their countrymen were all 
in chains, and a grand object for which they were to fight 
and bleed was, that their master might lose none of his 
power to keep them so. You, soldiers of liberty, are 
called to celebrate in arms the commencement of a new 
era. By the heroic charge that shall dash these armies of 
insolent invaders in wrecks and fragments back on the 
countries from which they came, you will confirm the doom 
that has crushed the internal despotism of our country in 
the dust. The Bastile is down, there is an end of a profli- 
gate court and arbitrary power, of the exclusive rights and 
the arrogance of nobles, of the rapacity of farmers-general, 
and the domination of Papal priests. The impositions that 
so long fixed our slavery, by fettering our minds, are broken 
away ; we have exploded the notions, as well as defied the 
power, of despotism ; we have proclaimed that all political 
power essentially resides in the people, and that those to 
whom its exercise is to be entrusted shall be chosen by the 
people, and most strictly accountable to them. "We are a 
part of this emancipated and elevated people, and are 
boldly come forth to maintain their cause and our own. Is 
it not worthy of us to be brave in such a cause ? Does not 
this land of new-born liberty deserve that we should fight 
for it like lions ? There, in our sight, are the armies that 
are come to make us all slaves again. Let us fall upon them 
directly, and drive them into the Jihine." 

Every mind responded to such an appeal ; though imper- 
fectly organized at first, though in various instances unskil- 
fully or unfaithfully commanded, and though many times 
in a state of confusion and defeat, these half-disciplined 
battalions were "fraught with fire unquenchable;" they 
astonished, and after a while intimidated, their veteran 
antagonists, by returning incessantly to the charge ; they 
were continually re-enforced by more of their countrymen, 



278 southey's chronicle of the old. 

animated with the same powerful sentiment, till at length 
the most famous legions and generals of Europe were over- 
powered, and driven away by an irresistible torrent. "We 
can remember to have read, in the accounts of those times, 
that one morning, after several days of severe conflict, and 
very partial success, in Alsace, General Pichegru signified 
to the army that he felt it needful to give them repose that 
day ; on which he was informed that they testified their dis- 
appointment, and expressed a strong and general wish to be 
led again to battle : they were led accordingly. It would 
be as much beside the purpose to discuss here the correct- 
ness of that idea of liberty, which created such an almost 
preternatural energy in the people and the armies of France, 
as to notice what a wretched disappointment, and what a 
hateful despotism, were in reserve to terminate all their 
prospects. It is sufficient for our object, that a bold, grand 
idea of liberty, involving the annihilation of everything that 
had oppressed and galled the people, and sent their advo- 
cates to the Bastile, under the old despotism, and quite 
clear of all counteractive considerations of this and the 
other aristocratical distinction or monopoly to be held 
sacred, and this or the other individual or family to be 
maintained in power, — it is enough that this idea inspired 
the energy, which flung the relics of the invading armies at 
the palace gates of those who had sent them. It is enough 
that everyone can imagine in an instant, what would have 
been the effect in the camp of Jourdan or Pichegru, if 
information had come from Paris, of the provisional govern- 
ment, anxious to secure the rights and happiness of the 
people, having settled that, though neither a prince of 
Austria or Prussia, nor exactly Louis XVI., must be king, 
yet the allegiance of the nation was inviolably due to some 
individual of the family, the Duke of Chartres for instance, 
on whose accession the government would go on in the 
same wise and popular manner that it had done a hundred 
years past. 

The reader has anticipated all we could say in the appli- 
cation of these hints to the recent movement of the Spanish 
people. We shall content ourselves with very few words, 
as there is now probably no great difference of opinion 
among thinking men, relative to the original and progres- 



PREVIOUS CONDITION OF SPAIN. 279 

sive probabilities attendant on this memorable event. One 
single short question disposes of the whole speculation ; 
Has liberty, in the sense in which alone it is of importance 
to a people, ever been fairly set before the Spanish nation ? 
It is of the essence of this question, to reflect a moment on 
the condition of the Spanish nation previously to this event ; 
we mean their condition as justly imputable to their own 
sovereigns, and their own system of government, exclusively 
of what evils may have accrued to them of late years from 
the French intrigues and ascendancy in their court. And 
according to all accounts, that condition was deplorable. 
Taken in a collective view, the people were ignorant, indo- 
lent, poor, dirty, and extravagantly superstitious, fond of 
tawdry shows and cruel sports, strangers, in a great mea- 
sure, to ingenious and mechanic arts, stationary in almost 
all the points of civilization in which the other countries of 
Europe are advancing, hampered by a clumsy and perverse 
judicature, in short, bearing the most flagrant marks of an 
incorrigibly bad government. Thus matters had gone on 
during the reigns of successive monarchs, and during the 
reign of probably the last of the Bourbons in Spain, 
Charles IV. At length, in consequence of we know not 
w r hat intrigues and private arrangements, the sovereignty 
passed suddenly from him into the hands of his son, not, of 
course, without expostulation and repugnance on the part 
of the father, whose rights, according to all orthodox 
notions on the subject, were grossly violated by the transfer. 
All this while, however, a powerful neighbour, whose tenets 
concerning kingly rights, saving and excepting those of 
himself and his royal brothers, are deemed highly heretical, 
had Ms schemes of transfer prepared, and his machines in 
operation ; and lo ! in a moment both the kings vanish from 
Spain, and " our brother Joseph" succeeds to the throne. 
It was found that the two monarchs had been fascinated, as 
we read of unfortunate birds sometimes being, to throw 
themselves directly into the mouth of the great serpent. 
At this juncture began the commotion which has so deeply 
and justly interested all Europe. A. just indignation at the 
base and treacherous proceedings of Napoleon, rose so high, 
in some parts of the country, as to issue in an energetic 
call of the whole nation to arms. This was a tremendous 



280 sotjthbt's cheonicle or the cid. 

crisis, and a most awful summons ; for it might be held 
certain, that the enemy, defied and challenged m this un- 
expected quarter, and this new manner, would discharge the 
whole collected thunders of his martial empire, and even 
if unsuccessful, would desperately prosecute the contest 
with the last battalion that would adhere to his standard. 
And if such would be his determination, what a scene the 
patriots had before them ! If the emergency should prove 
to require it, he would be able, at a moderate computation, 
to bring three hundred thousand soldiers, in successive 
armies, into Spain. It would be idle to calculate that 
such a force, a large proportion of it veterans accus- 
tomed to victory, and commanded by such a set of gene- 
rals as never were combined in any other service, could 
be everywhere encountered, and finally repelled, by less 
than four or five hundred thousand of the patriots. And if 
the war should continue even no more than six or eight 
months, how many great battles would there be, besides 
the incessant course of partial actions and bloody skir- 
mishes ? Would it have been at all an extravagant 
prediction that, during so many months of such a war, two 
hundred thousand devoted Spaniards might perish ? And 
then what miseries would be suffered by the defenceless 
inhabitants, what numbers of aged and sick persons, and 
women and children, would be exposed to terror, to want, 
and in many cases even to death ; what desolation of the 
country, what destruction of habitations, what ruin of 
agriculture, and what famine, as the probable consummation 
of all! This picture is inexpressibly too faint for the 
prospect, which was, or ought to have been, distinctly pre- 
sented to the minds of those who first summoned, and all 
who seconded them in summoning, their countrymen to 
combat with the whole power of France. Now then, we 
may ask, solemnly, what was that object, for the attain- 
ment of which the country was to be laid open to this 
most gigantic and enormous train of horrors ? "What was 
that ultimate trancendent felicity, the thought of which was 
to inspire such multitudes of men with the perfectly new 
sentiment, a contempt of wounds and death; which was to 
animate the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of these 
men to urge them on to battte, and which was to 






ULTIMATE OBJECT OE THE WAR. 281 

reconcile the whole population to have their country placed, 
for months in a situation about parallel to that of a forest 
infested by tigers? At the very least, that object could be- 
no less than the noblest system of national liberty that 
ever blessed any people. 

Let our readers recall to mind the manifestoes and 
addresses to the people, issued by the provincial Juntas 
that took the lead, and judge whether this was the object. 
Some of those publications were strongly conceived, and 
eloquently expressed. They powerfully expatiated on the 
treacherous arts by which the nation and the royal family 
had been inveigled, on the excesses committed in some 
places by the French troops, and on the glory of revenge ; 
on which last topic we regretted to see the patriots adopting 
a language and endeavouring to rouse a spirit of savage 
ferocity, fit only for the most barbarous age. But the 
accomplishment of revenge could be only a very subordinate 
object with the patriotic Juntas ; nor could it be expected 
to prove an object adequate, in those parts of the country 
which had not immediately suffered or witnessed the out- 
rages committed by the French, to stimulate the population 
to turn their meadows into fields of battle and expose their 
persons to the sword ; especially as it would be obvious that 
as soon as Joseph should be enthroned, the excesses of 
the French must, even for his sake, cease. "What, then, it 
must still be asked, was the grand ultimate object to be 
attained by so dreadful a war, even presuming it must be 
successful ? And, as far as we have at any time been able 
to discover, the grand, the sublime object, which was to ani- 
mate the people to such a warfare, to compensate its infinity 
of miseries, and to crown the final victory, was no other 
than a return to the old state of things, with the mere excep- 
tion of French influence, and the mischievous power of the 
Prince of the Peace, at the Spanish court. fsTone of the 
indispensable innovations, none of the grand reforms, for 
the want of which that people had been so long pitied or 
despised by all the civilized world, were specifically held out, 
as any part of the incitement or the prize ; no limitations of 
the royal power, or the royal expenses, no reduction of the 
privileges of the aristocracy, no restraints on ecclesiastical 
arrogance, no political existence to be given to the people, 



282 southey's chkoniole of the cid. 

no method of enabling them to participate or influence their 
government, no abrogation of the barbarous municipal regu- 
lations against the freedom of trade, no improvements of 
political economy that should contribute to supply clothes 
to those in rags, and food to those almost starving. No, 
there was nothing of all this held out to the people ; they 
were to draw on them, to fight, and to expel the whole 
power of France at the dreadful cost that we have described, 
and then Ferdinand and the old government were to be 
triumphantly restored, and all would be well ! Hundreds of 
thousands of them were summoned to rush out gallantly to 
perish, in order that the remainder might continue to be 
the poor, ragged, forlorn nation that they were and are. 

If a project for exciting the people to plunge into an 
unfathomable gulf of miseries and death for such an object, 
may be forgiven to the statesmen and prelates of Spain, 
whose Catholic imaginations are so stored with prodigies 
and miracles, what, however, will sober judges hereafter say 
of the politicians of England at the memorable juncture? 
By what reach of conjecture will it be possible to explain, 
how they, the enlightened inhabitants of a free country, in 
which they have so often eloquently declaimed on the glory 
of having permitted no despotism here, on the energy with 
which noble ideas of liberty will inspire a people to resist the 
armies of a tyrant, and on the wretchedness of living under 
a government like that of Spain; in what way can it be 
made intelligible, how these enlightened politicians should 
conceive it possible to rouse a whole people to arms, at the 
peril of such awful consequences, by any objects held out to 
them by the Juntas ? or should deem it a desirable thing if 
they could, — excepting, indeed, with the mere view of 
diverting the danger a while longer from our own country, 
and giving, in our stead, Spanish victims to the French 
sabres. 

What was Ferdinand, or any other individual, to the 
unhappy people of Spain, who were to leave their families, 
to have their cottages burnt, to famish, or to bleed for his 
sake ? "What had he ever done for them, or attempted to 
do ? If he had been a thousand times more their friend 
than they had ever found him to be, by what law of justice 
or common sense could it be, that countless multitudes 



HOPELESSNESS OF THE SPANISH CAUSE. 283 

should go to be slaughtered on his account ? — not to notice 
the absurdity of summoning a nation to fight for a person 
who was, as to any possible connexion with them, to all 
intents a nonentity. 

For a while, we still hoped that the name of Ferdinand 
would be suffered to sink, by degrees, out of the concern ; 
and that the project would assume, at length, the bold 
aspect of a really popular cause. In this hope, we anxiously 
waited the assembling of the Supreme Junta. At last they 
assembled, verified their powers, and took the oath which 
they had solemnly framed. We read that oath, and have 
never since, for one instant, entertained the smallest hope of 
the Spanish cause. There were some most vague and insig- 
nificant expressions in that oath, about taking care of the 
interest of the nation ; but its absolute sum and substance 
was, Popery and Ferdinand. The first of these, avowed in 
its utmost extent and grossness, we considered, as we have 
already attempted to explain, as enough to ensure the fate 
of the whole design, on account of its aspect relatively to the 
divine government ; and the latter, as furnishing far too 
insignificant a motive to animate a nation to battle. The 
Junta began by declaring they had no power to assemble 
the Cortez, in other words, that they could do nothing for 
the people; they went on to restrict the freedom of the 
press, and now, — the world is ceasing to inquire what they 
are doing. 

No room remains for remarks on the measures of our 
government, relating to the vast preparations and armies 
professedly intended for the assistance of Spain; what is 
worse, we have no room for adding many remarks on the 
book which has given occasion to this article. 

The Cid (i. e., Lord) B-odrigo Diaz, was a most renowned 
hero of the eleventh century, who was sometimes in the 
service of the Christian monarch of Spain, and sometimes 
maintained himself independent in his conquests from the 
Moorish part of the country. There are several ancient 
records, and an epic poem concerning him in the Spanish 
language ; Mr. Southey has formed the present work, by 
combining and harmonizing the several relations together, 
faithfully translating, as he assures us, what he has selected 
from each, and noting, in the margin of each paragraph, the 



284 sotjthet's chkonicle or the cid. 

work, and the part of the work from which it is taken. The 
translation is in the antiquated English dialect, which 
appears to us to be, in general, pretty successfully 
supported. 

The story is something between a history and a romance ; 
and Mr. Southey has not attempted to distinguish what is 
true from what is fabulous ; the Spanish literature evidently 
supplied no means for doing this, nor would it have been 
worth while, had it been practicable, as the fabulous parts 
are probably quite as amusing as the true, and. give as 
striking a picture of the times. In this view, the work is 
very interesting. We are transported into an age and 
country where the gentlemen go out to work in the morn- 
ing, with their steeds and lances, as- regularly as the farmers 
with their team and plough, and, indeed, a good deal more 
so. The Cid surpasses all his contemporaries for diligence 
and success in such laudable occupation. His course of 
enterprise is so rapid, so uniformly successful, and so much 
of a piece in other respects, that in some parts of the book 
the mind is quite tired of following him. In many other 
parts, however, the narrative is eminently striking, especially 
in describing some of the single combats, and most of all, in 
the long account of an extraordinary court of justice, held 
on two young princes or noblemen, who had abused their 
wives, the daughters of the Cid. Nothing in the whole 
library of romantic history can exceed this narrative. The 
Cid appears a humane warrior, according to the standard of 
those times, and yet he could calmly be guilty of the most 
infernal cruelties ; for instance, burning alive many Moors, 
in the siege of Valencia. The destruction of " infidels," 
indeed, in any and every manner, seems to have been 
regarded as one of the noblest exercises of Christian virtue. 
Three or four of his constant companions in arms display 
such magnanimous bravery, and such an affectionate fidelity 
to him, as to excite the reader's interest and partiality in no 
small degree. A prominent feature of the story throughout, 
is the frequent recurrence of religious and superstitious 
ideas, in the discourse of the warriors, in all situations. 



285 



SYDNEY SMITH'S SEKMONS. 

Two Volumes of /Sermons. By the Eev. Sydney Smith, M.A., 
late Fellow of New College, Oxford ; Rector of Foston, in York- 
shire j Preacher at the Foundling ', and at Berkeley and Fitsroy 
Chapels. 8vo. 1809. 

A species of infelicity, with which we do not remember 
to have seen any adequate expressions of sympathy, is that 
of a minister of religion who is not cordially pleased with 
his office. The persons, claiming on this ground the bene- 
volent sentiment, might be divided into several classes ; but 
we do not, at present, solicit it for those, who have such a 
disproportionate share, and such a parsimonious reward of 
clerical duty, as to droop under the hourly sense of toil and 
poverty ; nor for those (if any such there be), who can but 
ill brook the restraints of professional decorum on irregular 
dispositions ; nor yet for those who are oppressed by a 
desponding view of the inefficacy of their labours. There is 
another class, to which the friendly commiseration is per- 
haps equally due. We should probably come near the right 
description of this class, if we were briefly to sketch any one 
of the several instances that have fallen in our way in the 
course of our long life. JS"or should we be exhibiting any 
thing that is not familiar to the observation of many of our 
readers, if we were to represent the ecclesiastical condition 
and feelings of a young man, not born to the privilege of an 
independent fortune, but liberally educated, genteel in his 
address, and in all his tastes and ideas, possessed of very 
considerable talents, accompanied with the arrogance arising 
from his opinion that they are quite extraordinary ones, and 
submitting somewhat reluctantly to the circumstances which 
fix his destiny to the clerical profession. Why reluctantly ? 
Eroni causes which have naturally a most powerful influence 
on a spirited and proud young man. He finds that the 
church is the most favourite topic of ridicule among the far 
greater proportion of both the young and old men of fortune, 
fashion, spirit, and talent. While on this topic even dulness 
can contrive to be almost smart, he finds that no small share 
of the real wit and humour, which kindle the glee of gay 



286 SYDNEY SMITH'S SEKMOtfS. 

and genteel companies, crackles and sparkles from lncky 
hits at the chnrch. He is repeatedly mortified in such 
companies, by sly inuendoes at his own destination, and arch 
apologies for those inuendoes being sometimes too obvious. 
He is not less mortified to witness the kind of respect, 
sometimes practised in such society, towa,rds the ecclesiasti- 
cal order in the person of one of its members ; a respect 
exhibited in occasional affectations of extra decorum (parti- 
cularly as to the article of profane language) in consideration 
of his being present, followed and explained by pleasant ex- 
periments how far he will quietly suffer this decorum to be 
violated, and by exulting looks of challenge to rally in its 
defence when some gallant son of Mars puts it entirely to 
the rout. Nor will our spirited undergraduate feel the 
situation of the reverend gentleman much more enviable, 
when the squire or the knight, with a grin, refers to him 
some question of moral casuistry, while the counsellor and 
the physician make some leering compliment to the author- 
ity which his opinion derives from his spiritual function. 

It is with extreme vexation, that this incipient divine 
recollects all the current malicious jests about a very ordi- 
nary share of ability sufficing for the church ; about its 
being the destination of the less mercurial branches of the 
family who would have no chance of succeeding in any de- 
partment demanding acuteness or enterprise ; its being the 
convenient receptacle for the humble third cousins of persons 
of distinction, and the like. It mortifies him still more 
deeply to observe, that though there is at all times a grand 
aggregate of talent in the church, yet those brilliant exhibi- 
tions of genius and wit, of eloquence or science, which com- 
mand the admiration of the whole country, are chiefly made 
on the secular field. The condition of the laymen excites 
his envy, even by their having to claim the most distin- 
guished of the infidel corps ; and without really approxi- 
mating to their principles, he is tempted to like his religion 
and his church somewhat the less, for their having been 
held in scorn by these fine spirits. In surrendering himself 
to an institution and profession, from which so vast a host 
of talent have at all times kept aloof with the pride of 
choosing a freer and ampler ground for their operation, he 
is but imperfectly consoled by recounting the names and 



CLEEICAL ItfCOKGETIITY. 287 

appropriate epithets of the judicious Hooker, the witty 
South, the scientific and eloquent Barrow, and the profound 
Butler. He murmurs at his stars, and revolts at putting on 
the sacred habiliments, while each journal is recalling his 
attention and admiration to the examples of forensic and 
parliamentary eminence, or to the brilliance of martial 
achievements ; or if his ambition takes chiefly a literary 
direction, he has the greatest difficulty to pacify his pride, 
when forced to recollect how few of the great philosophers, 
historians, and poets, have been churchmen. Oh! that 
Locke, and Pope, and Gribbon (his scepticism notwithstand- 
ing), had been rectors, deans, or bishops; or that I had 
been privileged to affix to my name in the title-pages of my 
future performances that mark of independence and secu- 
larly, Esq. ! — Bat even if his mind could divest the clerical 
character of these associated ungracious recollections of the 
immense number of able men, who never thought, and many 
of whom he is mortified to reflect would have scorned to 
think, of assuming it, he has but little complacency in the 
very nature of the profession. He feels as if the office and 
character of a priest were something akin to a formality, a 
mechanical order, exceedingly uncongenial with the varying, 
and, as he deems it, energetic activity of the mind. Much 
of the required service he is disposed to regard as routine, 
and therefore he anticipates a sense of wearing and painful 
monotony. His pride, or as he calls it, his intellectual in- 
dependence, struggles violently against submitting to be 
bound up by a system of complete prescription, by which he 
is solemnly interdicted all option or change in opinions,, 
ceremonial observances, and even personal attire. He knows 
that the public does not regard an ecclesiastical situation as 
anything of the nature of an arena for either proving superior 
ability, or training it. Not a very large share is in general, 
as in many secular offices, peremptorily demanded, or even 
expected ; and therefore there is but a very faint degree of 
that stimulus to excellence, which in other departments is 
involved in the very fact of possessing the office. He fore- 
sees a deficiency of anything tending to exhilirate his imagi- 
nation ; as all the provision for it in ecclesiastical ornaments, 
movements, or even music, affords but little variety, and has 
already lost its effect through familiarity. And then as to 



288 SYDNEY SMITH'S SEEMONS. 

the chief matter of all, the influential communication of 
divine knowledge to an assembly of human beings, he does 
not feel such an affecting impression of the importance of 
this instruction and the infinite value of these rational 
beings, as to save him from the apprehension that he shall 
find it a very dull and tiresome. task to discourse again and 
again on what are necessarily become in a Christian country 
some of the most trite of all topics. 

]N~o rich uncle bequeaths a fortune and opportunely de- 
mises ; no fortunate casualty of introduction to persons of 
high rank ; no intimacy with the sons of political chieftains, 
in or out, suggests a chance of the honours and emoluments 
of the state ; a preparation for the law would be a long 
course of heavy toil and expense, with an exceedingly dubious 
prospect of success ; in short, the time arrives when our 
young genius must take upon him the indelible character, 
which assigns him to a class that he has never admired, and 
shuts against him for ever the highest theatre in which 
ambitious talent aspires to figure. It is not wonderful, if he 
accomplishes his formal and solemn dedication to the sacred 
function with nearly such feelings, as we may have perceived 
in an elegant and tolerably proud young man, whom the 
parsimony of his fortune had brought to the altar with a 
disagreeable and ancient, but wealthy dame. Thus dedi- 
cated, it becomes a question which of the several roads to 
distinction within the liberties of his profession he will 
decide to adopt. There would be no wonder to see him 
soon present himself as a most zealous champion of the 
ecclesiastical institution, extending his array of defensive 
hostility along its whole range, from its most solemn doc- 
trines to its minutest ceremonial appointments. And in 
this case he will apply himself assiduously to theological 
and polemical studies, and will not fail to become furnished 
with opinions, very definitely conceived, whether impartially 
formed or not, on most of the points that have been dis- 
cussed or controverted among the divines of the present and 
preceding ages. But, as we have reported him a genteel 
young man with much address and not a little assurance, a 
very different course is within his choice ; less promising, 
we should suppose, of ultimate preferment and prolonged 
fame, but attended with as much more to flatter such a man 



THE FASHIONABLE CLEBGYMAN. 289 

as with less to fatigue. Some favourable juncture will be 
afforded for his debut in a large city, where a great number 
of most genteel and fashionable persons understand there is 
some obligation on them, especially as George III. is 
on the throne, to pay a Sunday compliment to the religion 
of their country. Under this conscience of obligation both 
to the church and the state, they would perhaps discharge 
the duty, rather than forfeit the repute, even in temples 
where the officiating persons were defective in the graces 
both of address and composition.' But who would not be 
happy to lose the irksomeness of duty, in the pleasure of 
being religious, though this should lessen their merit in the 
article of self-denial ? And really these good Christians 
must in their hearts, be a little heathenishly given, if they 
should immoderately regret the concert, the opera, or even 
the Eoyal Institution, while performing their devotions in a 
place, where the minister, with an elegant appearance, and 
graceful gesture, and bland delivery, and brilliant touches, 
and philosophical elucidations, gently invites, for a very 
short space of time, to the newest and most tasteful mode of 
religion, the attention of an auditory shining in wealth, 
blooming in beauty, and dazzling in fashion ; a place, where 
the proudest need not apprehend being mixed with the 
vulgar, where the most dashing may deem it worth while to 
exhibit, where the most rational will be safe from Methodism, 
and where infidels will not be ashamed to have heard a 
sermon. 

Thus to promote the Christian worship, which is so apt 
to be regarded as a piece of very dull, though prudent, 
routine observance, almost to the rank of an amusement ; 
and, in effecting this, to be himself the centre of attraction 
to a portion of the choicest taste, beauty, and fashion, in a 
metropolis, may well cause the accomplished minister no 
little self-complacency and elation. Yes, to have inspirited 
the church to a competition with the theatre ! to have 
threatened Kemble with rivals in the Apostles! to have 
provoked all the gods and muses, that preside over the 
polished vanities of a great city, to envy at the name even 
of Christ ! this far transcends the achievement of that 
illustrious hero, who raised the despised Boeotia to a rivalry 
with all that was most powerful in Greece. No doubt the 

17 



290 



SYDNEY SMITH'S SERMON'S. 



fortunate preacher's imagination will greatly exaggerate the 
effect, and magnify the extent, of his operations ; and he 
will be averse to reflect how much larger a share of beauty 
and fashion, than that which confers its smiles on him, and 
how much richer an aggregate of taste, accomplishment, 
and rank, exists in the capital, without paying him any 
attention, without knowing him or even thinking of him : 
nor can he like to acknowlege to himself, how many more 
persons would deprecate a final cessation of the exhibitions 
of Cooke and Mrs. Jordan, than would be sorry for the 
cessation of his. Let him be duly guarded against the 
intrusion of such considerations, and he will receive the 
most lively gratification from the attention and flatteries of 
a numerous and elegant circle of national Christians ; who 
will surely be right in bestowing their favour on a person, 
who saves them from the oppressive dulness incident to 
Sunday duty, and in part from the ridicule of those who 
are too gay or free to make any conscience at all about the 
matter. If he combines with these ecclesiastical merits 
the talents and graces that animate the social party, he 
will find himself in much closer contact, if we may so express 
it, with his fame, — will enjoy a more immediate and con- 
centrated brilliance of smiles and compliments, than if he 
were prosecuting all the labours, with all the vigour, of 
"Warburton. 

One signal advantage attending this favourite of aus- 
picious fortune will be, the privilege of omitting to study a 
great many subjects which our eminent divines have 
deemed of the essence of theology. Almost all that 
doctrine which constitutes the peculiar character, and 
which may at last be found to constitute also the stamina 
and vital essence, of Christianity, must be left out of his 
ministrations, and therefore may as well be left out of his 
studies. It is a harder tax on ingenuity and caution, than 
any benefit likely to arise from such an exercise of them is 
worth, to proceed with impartial and serious thought 
through the Scriptures, and the writings of our most 
venerated divines in and out of the Established Church, 
without being misled into some few of the notions now 
called " Methodistical ; " and if our favourite evangelist of 
the polished and the fair, after having been seduced to adopt 



FASHIONABLE RELIGIONISTS. 291 

any of these notions, were in evil hour betrayed to express 
them, it is easy and curious to imagine what a look of 
surprise, quickly followed by a sullen blackness of visage, 
would take the place of that aspect of amenity which before so 
gently beamed on him from his whole auditory; and how 
vainly his accustomed wit and graces might be exerted to 
play him back into favour in the genteel society of which he 
had been so regaled with the flatteries. 

To be sure, it is possible for a man to be a learned theo- 
logian without being a Methodist. Setting out with a 
resolute and laudable prejudgment against all those inter- 
pretations of revealed religion which are sometimes deno- 
minated evangelical, he may investigate the whole theory 
with the express design of advancing opposite opinions 
systematically on every point. But, besides that some 
questions both of decorum and prudence would be involved 
in this regular warfare against the articles and the most 
revered divines of our church, it would be altogether useless 
and unacceptable in ministering to those devout Christians, 
whose partiality we have predicted for the pink of sacerdotal 
spruceness. They do not want to hear theological lectures 
of any school. Even the delight of seeing Methodism 
exploded would be bought too dear, at the price of listen- 
ing half an hour to a discussion of the doctrine of 
justification. "What they want is, to steal from the insti- 
tutions of religion an apology for thinking very little about 
religion itself; what they attend to must be constituted 
religion and must constitute them sufficiently religious in 
virtue of its being attended to in a consecrated place, under 
the presiding wisdom and devotion of a consecrated man, 
and amidst the paraphernalia of piety ; and the performance, 
being thus secured to be of a perfectly religious quality, 
may be allowed to avoid all statement of doctrines purely 
religious, and the more carefully it does so the more 
agreeable. It would certainly, as we remember a fashion- 
able ecclesiastic pertinently remarking, be somewhat of a 
"bore" to insist on such things, while there are so many 
pleasant matters of taste and sentiment at the preacher's 
choice. 

This exemption from the duty of severe theological study, 
will give our divine the more advantage for figuring, if he 

tj 2 



292 SYDNEY smith's sebmons. 

should desire it, as a man of letters, which will be a great 
additional recommendation. In this character, we can 
hardly guess how he will be likely to deport himself -with 
respect to religion. But we should rather expect to find 
him, when associating with wits, politicians, and philo- 
sophers, painfully envious of that freedom which they have 
not submitted to be cramped in canonicals ; and not more 
nice than some of them in the choice of expedients to 
shine. If, as a writer, he should feel insupportably im- 
patient of the proprieties imposed on the language of a 
gentleman and a member of the reverend body, he may 
indulge his genius anonymously ; and we know not whether 
we ought to be surprised, if we should detect him, under 
this mask, forswearing all his factitious elegance and refine- 
ment, railing in low diction against some of the worthiest 
of mankind, and repeatedly betraying his implacable quarrel 
with his destiny by ridiculing the clerical character. 

This last employment will be a truly painful sport to 
him ; and he will be sadly mistaken if he should fancy that 
it will be a recommendation in the view of some clever, and 
not over religious men, with whom he may be ambitious to 
hold a literary or a convivial connexion, and by whom he 
takes care to be recognized in the anonymous exhibition. 
Instead of admiring what he may wish them to consider as 
the fine free spirit far above his profession, they will despise 
the meanness which can assert the full claims, and take all 
the advantages of the profession, and at the same time be 
anxious to show them, in a confidential way, that he can 
sneer at it with as good a will as themselves. But whatever 
he may think necessary for his credit with the initiated, he 
will surely take every precaution that his clerical brethren 
and the public shall not be apprised how much the bad part 
of society are indebted to him for burlesquing serious sub- 
jects, for fanaticism and slander against Christian zeal, and 
for examples of a coarse and bullying language. Nor 
surely can he let his vanity so baffle his prudence, as to 
compel his ecclesiastical superiors to hear of him as a med- 
dler with matters of political party, and the maker of squibs 
against the policy of the church in points of which it is 
inveterately tenacious. If he should be so far abandoned of 
his discretion, we cannot choose but anticipate the melan- 



IKDIEEEEEtfCE TO THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 293 

choly consequence; the day will come when this bright 
form of genteel spirituality, this light of the fine and of the 
fair, after sparkling for some years about the metropolis, 
will be smitten away by the crosier of the diocesan ; and 
flying toward the north like a meteor, hissing but lessening 
as it flies, will quickly vanish from every bright eye that has 
been accustomed to reflect its lustre, and is turned to observe 
its departure. And will not an incurable sorrow take pos- 
session of those devout Christian souls, that are thus 
deprived of their instructor and pattern ? "Why no ; there 
will be a new fashion, a new opera, or a new singer ; and if 
the gentle belles must still be religious, some other elegant 
cicerone of Zion will soon present himself to attend them 
just as far in the amusements of piety as it may be modish 
for them to go. 

This slight picture has been formed, by combining our 
recollections of several real instances that have come within 
our observation at different times and places ; and we shall 
not pretend to conjecture how far it may bear any resem- 
blance to the very popular divine, to whom the public are 
indebted for the two volumes before us. They do, however, 
tempt us to fancy a likeness in one particular, the indiffer- 
ence to theological studies. They appear to us to give pal- 
pable indications of a mind, rarely and reluctantly applied 
to the investigation of either the specific doctrines, or the 
general principles, of the theory of revealed religion. It 
will be doubted by the most candid readers, whether the 
author has ever taken the pains to ascertain the sense of the 
articles, which, as a clergyman he has subscribed, or even to 
impose a sense upon them ; to examine the opinions of the 
most celebrated divines of the church, or to deduce for him- 
self a scheme of faith from the Bible. He may by chance 
in the library of some veteran theologian, have glanced on 
bodies of divinity, and huge tomes of theological controversy 
and biblical exposition ; and in disgust at such dry and end- 
less toils, have decided that the science of religion was never 
intended for men of taste. Besides, a large proportion of 
those doctrines, which divines have very commonly main- 
tained and expatiated on as parts of the Christian system, 
are now convicted of " Methodism," and therefore require 
no further examination. From whatever cause it is, the 



294 SYDNEY SMITH'S SEEMONS. 

matter of these Sermons is more disconnected than we have 
witnessed, as we think, in any other instance, with theolo- 
gical doctrines of one school or of another. And when the 
topic in hand essentially involves any of them, the discourse 
often proceeds boldly forward in a complete ignorance of 
this essential point, and now and then does worse by an 
awkward and unknowing mode of recognizing it. There is 
no definable system of faith inherent, if we may so express 
it, in this large body of professedly Christian instruction. 
"We are not here taking on us to decide precisely what 
scheme of principles a preacher ought to have fixed in his 
mind ; but we do think, that since it is impossible for him 
to confine himself wholly to subjects involving no point of 
religious theory, he should take the trouble to settle his 
judgment on the principal parts of that theory, so far at 
least as to make him consistent and intelligible when he is 
occasionally forced near them by stress of his subject. 

Some agreeable and instructive authors of the clerical 
profession, in whom we have observed a very serious dissent 
from what appears to us, and has appeared to many of the 
most eminent divines, the revealed theory of religion, have 
been, however, very careful, that whatever they said on 
religions subjects should be conformed to some standard of 
opinion ; aware of the indecorum, to use no other term, of 
flinging off at perfect random sentiments in which Christian 
truth is necessarily implicated. The present writer, in utter 
contempt of any such rule of propriety, will, for the sake of 
saying a spirited thing, hazard (and indeed without seeming 
sensible that the hazard is of any consequence) an utter 
violation of any scheme of doctrine entertained as truth by 
any class of professed believers in Christianity. As one 
instance from a hundred, he describes a hospital as being 
" ample enough to call down the blessings of Glod on a city, 
and wipe out half their sins" (Vol. I. p. 127.) We should 
think there is no class denominated Christian, that would 
avow a creed compatible with such a doctrine as this. 

There are, however, a very few points of faith, to which 
all the carelessness of our preacher does not prevent him 
from most steadily adhering. One of them is, of course, 
that all hopes of the divine favour are to be founded on 
human merit. This is everywhere assumed in the most 



EBKOKEOUS THEOLOGY. 295 

broad and unceremonious manner, unaccompanied (and it 
is so much the better) with any unmeaning pretence of 
ascribing something to the sacrifice of Christ. Indeed, on 
this one point of the Christian doctrine he appears to have 
been at rather more than usual pains to form an opinion ; 
for he asserts, precisely, that 

" It is contrary to the repeated declarations of the Gospel, it 
is derogatory to the attributes of the Deity, to suppose that 
Jesus Christ dwelt among men for any other purpose but to 
show them that rule of mortal life which leads them to life 
eternal." — Vol. ii. p. 252. 

If there were any portion of these volumes, or anything 
in their general character, that could be fairly construed 
into an opposite doctrine to that which is here avowed or 
implied, we should be quite willing to attribute such a pas- 
sage, either to complete carelessness of expression on theo- 
logical points, or to that studied inaccuracy, which we can 
remember to have seen occasionally resorted to by smart 
ecclesiastics, as an expedient for averting the imputation of 
having been so dull and clerical as to occupy their thoughts 
about the articles of a creed : we should be prompt to take 
the matter in whichever of these ways should be the most 
complaisant to the writer. But the whole tenor of these 
Sermons accords with the opinion so obviously avowed in 
this passage. Now, we suppose nobody will dispute that a 
layman, or a dissenting teacher, is perfectly at liberty, so 
far as his accountableness to any human authority is con- 
cerned, to avow his rejection of that economy of redemption 
which is founded on the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ; 
but, even after all we have seen, we feel some little remain- 
ing capacity of wondering, when we find this done in a bold 
unqualified manner, by a minister who holds his situation in 
virtue of having subscribed, ex animo, the articles of the 
Established Church, and who takes occasion, in one of these 
Sermons, to insist on the necessity of articles and subscrip- 
tion for preserving the integrity of the faith! All will 
admits we presume, that an opinion, which disclaims the 
doctrine of a real atoning sacrifice in the death of Christ, 
cannot be advanced but in direct contradiction to the sense 
of our articles, to the judgment of those who framed them, 



296 SYDNEY smith's sekmons. 

and to the opinions of the grand body of the divines of the 
church who have held and enforced them ever since. It is 
plainly a rejection of what has always been of the very 
essence of the object intended by the national mind, in 
maintaining the religious establishment. 

The principle renounced is of such magnitude, and has 
such an effective relation with every part of the scheme of 
faith, that its rejection does no less than pronounce that 
the institutes of the church are substantially false and 
absurd in their bearing on that very concern, which alone 
makes it of any material consequence for human beings to 
have a religion at all, — their acceptance before the Divine 
Justice, and their eternal salvation; and that, as to the 
grand principle of the theory of that acceptance and sal- 
vation, the shieks and imaums of Constantinople have a 
doctrine incomparably more rational and more consistent 
with the attributes of the Divine Being. What judgment 
must we then be compelled to form of those persons who 
can submit to purchase the privileges of the church, and 
among them that of proclaiming from the pulpits of the 
church itself, that these its sacred institutes are false and 
absurd, at the price of solemnly avowing in the presence 
of Grod their belief that these institutes are true ? And 
what must we be reduced to think of the administration of 
the church ? Must we at last be driven to confess that a 
man has only to give a solemn pledge of adherence to one 
form of doctrines, to be richly remunerated for preaching, 
and with the approbation or connivance of those ecclesi- 
astical superiors to whom he is amenable, any doctrine 
he pleases, — except perhaps that reputed " methodism," 
which forms the distinguishing character of the articles 
which he has subscribed ? Is it possible to conceive a state 
of things that should more imperiously call for reformation? 
Is it exactly in the institutions of religion that we are to 
sanction, as innocent and honourable, that trifling with 
principle and obligation which in any other department 
would be regarded with abhorrence ? We are not unaware 
of the subterfuges under which ingenious men, and in 
imitation of them men not ingenious, have endeavoured to 
protect their consciences; in which endeavour we have 
often seen them but very partially successful ; and if the 



SUBSTITUTES TOE THE ATOlfEMEWT. 297 

success has in some cases been complete, we are greatly 
afraid it has, in every such instance, been at an expense at 
which any privileges of any institution in the world are 
much too dear. 

In these Sermons, the idea of an atonement by the death 
of Christ being dismissed from our faith, there is a laudable 
inquiry for any competent substitute ; and a necessary 
inquiry, since it cannot be denied that all men have sinned. 
Substitutes are easily found ; building a hospital, as we 
have seen, will atone for half the sins of a city ; repentance 
is called an atonement ; it is said that restitution " eases 
our shoulders from the burden of sin, appeases the restless 
anger of conscience, and renders the mind cheerful and 
serene," and is of virtue sufficient to " have pacified both 
G-od and man." "The pleasure of forgiving," it is said, 
" is a pleasure ever recurring, causing a man to love and 
respect himself, breathing a satisfaction over the whole of 
life, remembered the hour before dissolution, offered up to 
G-od as an atonement for sin." (Yol. II. p. 148.) We do 
not anywhere find that our divine thought it necessary to 
prove that God will accept these offerings as satisfactory 
for this purpose, or to suggest any expedient for neutraliz- 
ing the consequences of our wilful mistake, if it should too 
late be found that He has rejected them. The chief comfort, 
perhaps, in the contemplation of that hazard, is furnished 
by the assurance which the hearers and readers are taught 
to entertain, that a tolerable proportion of mankind will but 
little need the benefit of any atonement at all : this assur- 
ance is administered, if we rightly understand, in a passage 
where the preacher represents it as weakness to be afraid 
of death if the "life has not been notoriously wicked." 
(Yol. II. p. 291.) 

Though our author is no friend to that religious theory 
which represents man, while prosecuting the great design 
of obtaining eternal felicity, as running extravagantly in 
debt to the divine mercy, — and is very properly of opinion, 
that this ambitious expectant, having the means of making 
respectable payments as he goes on in the sterling' material 
of goodness, repentance, and the like, ought to behave 
handsomely in the affair ; yet we must do him the justice 
to say, he is far from being such an adorer of the excellence 



298 SYDNEY smith's sermons. 

of human nature as some fashionable divines. Now and 
then his observant shrewd sense has a momentary lapse 
into this superstition, and he speaks as if he descried divers 
celestial beauties and godlike qualities in that nature ; but 
the illusive shape and gloss soon vanish from the form and 
features of the god, and leave our author to pourtray (and 
he often does it in a very striking manner) the various 
phases of a depraved being. Indeed, the whole effect of 
the display of the human nature and condition in these 
volumes, though contrary to the writer's intention, is 
extremely sombre, so much so, that we have been prompted 
to turn even to Baxter and Boston to relieve our gloomy 
impressions. "What other impression could we receive, 
from being brought to contemplate an accountable creature 
full of radical vicious propensities ; liable to be overgrown, 
and generally, in fact, as much overgrown, even early in its 
existence, with bad and tyrannical habits, as trees with 
moss ; incessantly, and on all sides, tempted to become worse 
and worse ; condemned, notwithstanding, to regulate by the 
measure of its deserts its expectations beyond death ; 
unaided, in the exertions for vanquishing evil, and attaining 
excellence, by any special divine influence, unprotected by 
a particular providence, and doomed to surrender itself, at 
death, to an entire extinction of consciousness, till the 
resurrection ? 

The last particular in this melancholy sketch is not, that 
we remember, put in the explicit form of a proposition ; but 
we must once more complain of a most unaccountable care- 
lessness of expression, if it is not meant to be implied in 
such expressions as these : — 

"The feelings of bodily decay often lead to repentance ; it 
happens, fortunately for man, that he is not called out of the 
world in the vigour of health, not by a sudden annihilation, but 
by a gradual destruction of his being.'''' — Vol. I. p. 24. 

" This makes a parent delight in his children, and repose on 
them, when his mind and his body are perishing away." — P. 148. 

" They are gone, the grave hides them, and all that remains 
of father and of mother, are the dust and the ashes of their 
tombs."— P. 152. 

" The happiness of the dead, however, is affected by none of 
these things ; nor is it such circumstances that can disturb their 



METHODISM. 299 

profound repose ; they are slumbering in the dust, unconscious 
of the mouldering scene around them, &c. — P. 118. 

In explaining the illustration taken from the seed of 
wheat, the preacher represents St. Paul, who undoubtedly 
believed himself discoursing on the changes of the body, to 
have really meant changes of the soul. " So also," says the 
great apostle, " it is with the soul of man ; it will be 
changed as the seed is changed." " This comparison 
between the outward world, and the changes of the soul, 
set on foot by the holy apostle," &c. (Pp. 266, 267.) It is 
but fair to notice that a few pages forward we find this 
sentence: "these faculties show us that the soul is now 
young and infantine, springing up into a more perfect life 
when the body falls into the dust." 

One of the longest sermons is an animated invective 
against Methodism; and we most cordially join in the 
preacher's indignation, as every reader of sense will do, 
when he sees the description of that combination of quali- 
ties, of which this term is the substantive name. Por the 
Methodists are distinguished by an " astonishing arrogance 
and presumption ; they speak as if a new dispensation had 
been accorded to the world, as if the time was at last 
arrived when they were permitted to show to mankind the 
true knowledge of the true God." "The gratification of 
this spiritual pride is become in fact one of their religious 
exercises; it is mingled in all their religious meditations, 
and becomes the darling and consolation of their souls." 
Their " predominant notion of religion seems to be, that it is 
something removed as far from common sense as possible." 
They are actuated by a " fanaticism which it is no more 
possible to meet with the common efforts of reason, than it 
is to dispute with a burning fever, or to argue down a 
subtle contagion." " Nothing can be more mistaken than 
to look upon the frantic extravagance, or the undignified 
trifling of their teachers as innocent." Now such persons 
there certainly are in our country ; only we think our 
author betrays a great contempt of accuracy in calling them 
a " sect," and speaking of them as of modern origin, unless 
he were thinking particularly of the followers of Sweden- 
borg. They should rather be called a class, some indi- 



300 SYDNEY SMITH'S SEEMONS. 

viduals belonging to which are to be found, and have at all 
times been found, in almost all denominations. Indeed he 
virtually acknowledges that the persons he has in view are 
no sect, by admitting that they agree substantially with the 
more moderate and judicious members of the church in the 
doctrines they maintain ; the doctrines, therefore, of course, 
which he himself, as one of those moderate and judicious 
members, maintains. But here we are reduced to great 
perplexity about the denomination of Methodists as applied 
to such a class ; for we had imagined, that in the fashionable 
dialect this was the distinctive designation for a class of 
religionists, who insist, with peculiar earnestness, on the 
atoning merits of Jesus Christ, on justification through 
faith in him, on the operations of the Holy Spirit, and on 
the blessings of a particular providence. 

In our last number we suspended our review of these 
volumes in a considerable degree of perplexity, caused by 
several passages in the sermon against Methodism, and par- 
ticularly by this : — 

li In applying the term sect, to persons of this religious per- 
suasion (the Methodists), and in distinguishing them from the 
Church of England, I do not found that distinction upon the 
speculative tenets they profess, but upon the general spirit they 
display ; it is in vain to say you belong to our ancient and 
venerable communion, if you lose sight of that moderation for 
which we have always been distinguished, and instead of same- 
ness of spirit give us only sameness of belief. You are not of 
us (whatever your belief may be), if you are not sober as we 
are ; you are not of us, if you have our zeal without our know- 
ledge ; you are not of us, if those tenets which we have always 
rendered compatible with sound discretion make you drunk 
and staggering with the new wine of enthusiasm." — Vol. I., 
p. 284. 

Now, in this passage, the writer very clearly identifies 
his religious belief with the tenets of the Established Church, 
and then admits that the speculative doctrines of the 
Methodists also are identical with those tenets ; and this is 
plainly saying, that in point of speculative religious opinions, 
he and the Methodists are agreed, the difference being only 
the spirit with which these opinions are maintained and 
applied. Here we were reduced to extreme perplexity 



INSULT TO THE ESTABLISHED CHUItCH. 301 

in attempting to guess what class of Christians it could be 
that our preacher has chosen to denominate Methodists. 
For we found him rejecting the doctrine of the atonement, 
rejecting and ridiculing the doctrine of a particular provi- 
dence, and showing, by palpable implications, his disbelief of 
some other tenets, maintained as of the utmost importance 
by those who lay the most emphasis on these two doctrines. 
"We were quite certain that any one of the classes usually 
called Methodists, would just as soon acknowledge them- 
selves to be of the faith of Japan as to coincide with our 
preacher's notions of Christianity. And yet he has not 
signified that it is any new class of religionists against 
which he has felt it his duty to caution his auditors. ]N~or 
is it any new class, as far as we can by any means discover 
from the general tenor of his sermon. 

It is hard that we have no possible way out of this diffi- 
culty but by breaking a wide gap through the preacher's 
sincerity. "We looked this way in a former part of our 
observations, and we are forced towards the same point 
again. It is a signal piece of disingenuousness in this 
preacher to pretend to identify his opinions with the 
standard creed of the Established church. And what does 
excite our indignation not a little, we confess, is to see 
this done in such a manner as to seem an intentional wanton 
insult on that venerable establishment ; the pretence being 
made, with an air of easy confidence, in a set of Sermons, in 
which it is not thought worth while to take the slightest 
trouble even to disguise the rejection and contempt of some 
of the most essential points of the instituted faith. "We 
cannot preserve our patience to so* our church treated thus 
by her professed sons and advoc^ies. "We seem to hear 
them say, " You see to what a plight the good old super- 
annuated Establishment is reduced. She is like an old 
decrepit lady whose servants have a few ready cant phrases 
of deference, but laugh at her orders almost before they 
have closed the door of her room, and go and do everything 
just as they like, without in the least caring for the conse- 
quences of her being told how they are acting. The good 
old church has appointed plenty of creeds and confessions : 
we have set our names to a long list of articles full of the 
demerit of human works, full of a propitiatory sacrifice, 



302 SYDNEY smith's seemons. 

justification by faith, salvation by pure grace, and such kind 
of things. Yes, we have subscribed, ha! ha! ha! and 
gravely promised to hold forth these laudable fancies. This 
engagement having been made in all due form, and the 
ceremonial parts of the service being discharged in the pre- 
scribed manner, we easily find means to dupe our worthy 
old mistress ; or if we cannot dupe her, or do not choose to 
take so much pains, we have nothing to fear in setting at 
nought her authority, as to what relates to her musty 
creeds. We shape our discourses and doctrines according 
to our own taste, or the fashion of the times ; and thus we 
get the emoluments, and sometimes laugh and sometimes 
rail, as it may alternately suit our amusement or our 
interest, at those whose precious squeamish consciences will 
not let them obtain a share of our privileges, 'at the trifling 
cost of declaring their assent to what they do not believe." 
These gentlemen, however, know when to be demure again ; 
and then, it is so venerable an institution! so faithfully 
supported ! so formed for perpetuity ! Then, each of them 
devoutly crosses himself, and chants, after this reverend 
precentor, " the church is not endangered by this denomi- 
nation of Christians (the Methodists) ; I hope and believe 
that its roots are too deep, its structure too admirable, its 
defenders too able, and its followers too firm, to be shaken 
by this or any species of attack." (Yol. I. 290.) We 
cannot suppress our indignation at seeing this deliberate 
systematic practice of insult to the Establishment. And we 
would loudly warn, though we fear it will be of no avail to 
warn the church that all such men are traitors to her 
interests, and in effect conspirators against her life. Ad- 
hering in form to her communion, and possessing all its 
temporal privileges, they are notwithstanding decided, 
violent, super-libertine dissenters, beyond all comparison 
more alienated from her grand principles of faith, than 
thirty-nine in forty of those who are formally separated 
from her communion. 

We intended some remarks on our reverend author's 
doctrine of Providence ; but shall reserve them for an occa- 
sion which will require a brief attention to precisely the same 
notions, exhibited in almost literally the same language, in a 
short anonymous publication ascribed to the same author, and 



INTELLECTUAL ABILITY. 303 

not disavowed by him. That these notions are opposite to 
the Bible, is the very last argument, we suppose, that any 
reader of these sermons would think of suggesting to the 
writer of them ; but it might have been expected he would 
not have been desirous to shut himself out from every 
respected school of philosophers. 

If no publication ever came with more defective claims, 
in point of theological quality, than these sermons, we must 
employ a different language as to what they exhibit of 
intellectual ability and moral instruction. They display a 
great deal of acuteness, diversified mental activity, and inde- 
pendent thinking. "Whatever else there is, there is no 
common place. The matter is sometimes too bad, some- 
times too good, but always too shrewd, to be dull. The 
author is a sharp observer of mankind, and has a large 
portion of knowledge of the world. "What is more, he has 
exercised much discriminative observation on the human 
heart, and often unfolds a correct view of its movements, 
especially the depraved ones. He has indicated in it so 
many native principles of pernicious operation, that if he 
cared about philosophical consistency he would turn 
orthodox at once ; and be behind no " Methodist " of us all, 
in representing the necessity of an influence from heaven to 
purify so corrupt a source of agency. We have seen many 
instances of men choosing to be absurd philosophers, in 
order to avoid being sound divines. But did he not laugh 
outright in his study, when he was making sentences about 
" manly resolution," " noble pride," and other such things, 
as being the forces which were to subdue internal evil, and 
defeat, throughout a campaign of half a century, a world of 
temptations ? We should indeed be sorry if he could be in 
so gay a mood when going to lead his auditors into so fatal 
an error ; but we cannot conceive that he could avoid that 
perception of incongruity which usually excites the risible 
muscles. B-eally, notwithstanding all we have said, we think 
the man has more a Methodistical basis than half his clerical 
brethren. A man, who entertains Ms estimate of the 
condition of human nature, holds a principle which, by correct 
inference, precipitates the mind to despair on the one hand, 
or leads it towards the reprobated doctrines on the other ; 
and it would be an admirable proof of " manly resolution " 



301 SYDNEY SMITH'S SERMONS. 

and "noble pride," to reject them because formalists, and 
sciolists, and profligates, and fribblers, and divers other sorts 
of creatures, all wisely join to sneer at them, for the most 
part without so much as ever attempting to understand 
them ! 

The morality will often be, of course, very defective in 
principle, in works wherein the theology is so scanty and so 
erroneous. Making, however, the due allowance for this 
and for every other deteriorating cause, there will be found 
in these sermons a large share of valuable instruction. 
Greneral principles of morals are sometimes developed with 
very original illustrations. The discriminations of right 
and wrong are often strongly marked. Moral agents are 
represented in a great diversity of situations, and many of 
those situations are brought forward into view very forcibly, 
by means of well-selected circumstances and strong colouring. 
The reader will observe that the moralist has the real 
world and the present times constantly in his view ; his 
observations have the advantage of bearing a relation to 
facts ; they are the moral lessons of a man who knows the 
world ; they are pictures as well as precepts. In one of 
these discourses we are not so much listening to a formal 
lecture, as accompanying the moralist into some scene of 
human action, apposite to the topic he has chosen, and 
hearing him make a series of acute and spirited comments 
on the prominent circumstances as they present themselves. 
This prevents regular and extended discussion, but it throws 
peculiar force into particular passages. It casts the surface 
of the composition in points, generally sharp, and sometimes 
sparkling. It is to be noticed, at the same time, that his 
moral observations, while bearing so strong an impression of 
acquaintance with the real world, will in some instances be 
also found rather more accommodating to the world's 
standard of moral principles, than the moral speculations 
and instructions of a teacher would be who should qualify 
his knowledge of the world with an equally intimate know- 
ledge of Christianity. It will easily be conjectured, that 
our present instructor will lay down his moral rules, at 
somewhat more than a sufficient distance from puritanical 
spirituality and austerity. Yet we find less reason to com- 
plain than we should have expected in moral reasonings so 



HIGH TONE OE MORAL SENTIMENT. 305 

little indebted directly to the light of true theology. A 
new proof is here afforded, that in a country, where Chris- 
tianity is well known, those intelligent men who give it but 
very little attention, and who despise some of its leading 
principles, if they should ever have happened to hear them 
stated, have nevertheless acquired, insensibly and involun- 
tarily, a much higher tone of moral sentiment than we find 
in the heathen philosophers. Our preacher's tone is some- 
times very high; we were really surprised, as well as 
gratified to find him, for instance, giving no quarter to the 
love of praise as a motive of action. 

" I mean by vanity, the excessive love of praise, and I call it 

excessive whenever it becomes a motive to action The 

vanity of great men, when it stimulates them to exertions useful 
to mankind, is that species of vanity, which seems to approach 
the nearest to virtue, and which we most readily pardon for its 
effects ; and, indeed, so much are we inclined to view actions by 
their splendour, or their importance, rather than by their motives, 
that we can hardly agree to call by the name of vain, a man who 
has exercised consummate and successful ability upon great 
objects ; whereas, there is a vanity of great, and a vanity of little 
minds, and the same passion regulates a ceremony, which saves, 
or ruins a kingdom. It is better, to be sure, that good (if it 
cannot be done for the best), should be done from any motive, 
rather than not be done at all ; but the dignity of the fact can 
never communicate purity to the intention. True religion con- 
sists not only in action, but in the mind with which we act ; 
and the highest beneficence which flows from vanity, though it 
may exalt us in the eyes of men, abases us in the view of God." 
—Vol. II. p. 114. 

A multitude of specimens might be extracted, of just and 
forcible thinking ; we will transcribe only two or three, not 
as being preferable to many others, but as first occurring to 
our recollection. From a very striking Sermon on the bad 
" effect which a life passed in great cities produces on the 
moral and religious character," we might quote much more 
than the following passages : — 

" It is not favourable to religious feeling to hear only of the 
actions and interference of men, and to behold nothing but what 

ingenuity has completed Out of great cities, there is 

everywhere around us a vast system going on, utterly indepen- 

X 



306 SYDNEY smith's seemons. 

dent of human wisdom and human interference ; and man learns 

there the great lesson of his imbecility and dependence 

But here everything is man, and man alone : kings and senates 
command us; we talk of their decrees, and look up to their 
pleasure ; they seem to move and govern all, and to be the pro- 
vidence of cities ; in this seat of government, placed under the 
shadow of those who make the laws, we do not render unto 
Csesar the things which are Csesar's, and unto God the things 
which are God's, but God is forgotten, and Caesar is supreme ; 
all is human policy, human foresight, human power; nothing 
reminds us of invisible dominion and concealed Omnipotence ; 
we do nothing but what man bids ; we see nothing but what 
man creates ; we mingle with nothing but what man com- 
mands ; it is all earth and no heaven." 

" The lesson which all ought to learn from principle, is often 
taught by poverty, sickness, and old age, and we are then most 
willing to rest upon a superior power, when we learn from 
experience the moral and physical evils by which we are sur- 
rounded, and the confined powers of our nature by which those 
evils are to be repelled, This lesson, however, is more slowly 
learnt in great cities than elsewhere, because there the strongest 
combination is formed against the accidents of life. It is there 
that every evil which can harass humanity, is guarded against 
by the most consummate experience, and rectified with the most 
perfect skill ; whatever man has discovered to better his condi- 
tion, is there to be found ; and the whole force of human genius, 
called to the aid of each individual, gradually diminishes that 
conviction of human imbecility which is one cause of religious 
feeling"— Vol. II. p. 302. 

"We like the pointed, spirited cast of a paragraph in the 
Sermon on Repentance, and a similar one in the Sermon on 
Temptation — which we will place together. 

" The great mean of making repentance efficacious, is by hold- 
ing no parley with temptation ; to hesitate is to consent ; to 
listen is to be convinced ; to pause is to yield. The soul of a 
penitent man should be as firm against future relapse, as it is 
sorrowful for past iniquity. The only chance for doing well, is 
to be stubborn in new righteousness ! to hear nothing but on 
one side, and to be indebted for safety to prudence rather than 
to impartiality ; above all things, to tremble for youthful virtue ; 
not to trust ourselves, till we have walked long with God — till 
the full measure of his grace is upon us — till long abstinence 
has taught us to forbear — till we have gained such wide, and 
such true knowledge of pleasure, that we comprehend salvation 
and eternity in the circle of our joys." — Vol. I. p. 32. 



ON TEMPTATION AND SCANDAL. 307 

" Then there must be no treaty entered into with the Tempter; 
no parley, no doubt, no lingering explanation ; but clear denial, 
indicating calm and invincible resistance ; for in this way the 
souls of men are lost to salvation ; it seems innocent to listen, it 
is no crime to hear what the thing is ; I can always deny, I can 
always retreat ; I am still master of my own actions. But this 
is an error, for you cannot deny, or retreat, but at the first pause 
you were lost, and sin and death marked you for their own ; it 
is madness to combat with the eloquence of sin, or to gaze at the 
pictures of passion ; if you dispute with pleasure, she will first 
charm you to silence, then reason you to conviction, then lead 
you utterly from God ; she wants you only to hear and see, she 
requires only one moment's pause, she knows if you can balance 
for a point of time between her present rapture and the distant 
felicity of heaven, that you are quite gone ; you must meet 
temptation with blind eyes, and deaf ears, and with a heart 
which no more balances whether it shall be virtuous, than it 
does whether it shall send the blood of life through all the 
extremities and channels of the bodily frame." — Vol. II. p. 11. 

"We may cite the following passage, on the pleasure with 
which scandal is heard and circulated, as a proof of that 
talent of detecting human nature, which is often displayed 
in these volumes. 

" There are many I believe, who are so far from listening to 
the means by which this satisfaction at the misconduct of others, 
maybe checked, that they are rather inclined to doubt of the 
disorder, than to adopt the remedy. It wounds our pride as 
much to confess the fault, as it gratifies our pride to practise it. 
No man chooses to avow that he wants the faults of others, as a 
foil to his own character ; no man has the desperate candour to 
confess, that the comparison which he draws between himself 
and his brother, upon hearing of any act of misconduct, is a 
source of pleasure ; and that in such cases, the feelings of self 
overcome the rules of the Gospel ; if you ask any man such a 
question, he will say, that he depends upon his own efforts, and 
not on the failure of others ; he will contend that the errors of 
his fellow-creatures are to him a source of serious concern ; he 
says so, — and he believes that he says the truth ; for no man 
knows the secrets of his own heart ; but if it is true, why are 
the wings of evil fame so swift and so unwearied ? Why is it not 
as difficult to lose, as to gain, the commendations of mankind 1 
Why does it require a whole life to gain a character which can 
be lost, and unjustly lost, in a single moment of time? It is this, 
because we are reluctant to exalt and ever willing to pull down ; 
because we love the fault better which gives us an inferior, than 

x 2 



308 SYDNEY SMITH'S SEBMONS. 

the virtue which elevates a human being above us."— Vol. I* 
Pp. 198. 

While we are sincerely glad, as a kind of set-off against 
the theological condemnation, to bear testimony to the 
large portion of spirited and vigorous thought and just 
molality in these volumes, we are yet compelled to tax 
them, as literary performances, with capital faults lne 
first that will strike every reader is, excessive affectation. 
It appears even in the typographical structure of the page. 
The writer seems to fancy it a merit, or an exploit, to divide 
and point his sentences in a different manner from that oi 
anv other writer in Europe, and a manner which no other 
writer in Europe will imitate He has had a quarrel with 
the period ; and seems resolved to drive it out of the repub- 
lic of letters, after all its faithful and welcome services m 
nutting an end to tedious sentences, sermons, and books. 
The colon, or any other of the marks, is to occupy its 
vacated place. There often appears a particular care that 
the stops shall bear no relation to the pauses of the sense. 

We know not what else to impute it to but affectation, 
that we meet with such grammatical faults, as a scholar 
and critic could not have fallen into inadvertently.^ Eor 
example; "many a precept lays hid in the soul Ac.; 
« enthusiasm has sprang up among the rich ; when the 
sword has drank its full;" « it often happens that the 
repentance, began at a moment of sickness vanishes & .; 
« we are thoroughly aware of having began, &c ; alter 1 
had strove by these" means to teach ; " " he sets down to the 
feast of Mammon;" "the spirit of the Gospel is evinced 
by rising up the humble;" "as if the time ^ at last 
arrived ;" "we can rarely or ever return ;" "there is not a 
feeling of wretchedness' you can strike into his heart, but 
S, Iternally recorded against you;" "the man who 
can please for the passing hour is better and greater than 
Ai* who can," Ac. ; " dissimilar from the tots of the 
spirit;" "this discontent of present things We have 
transcribed these examples literally ; and surely such things 
are among the very poorest expedients, by which an au hoi 
can lose his trouble in trying to persuade his readers that 
he i too powerfully borne along by his subject to regard 
grammatical proprieties, or can seek the repute of gratuitous 



FAULTS OF STYLE. 309 

singularity. It is perhaps hardly worth while to notice his 
fancy for always using the article an before a word begin- 
ning* with the aspirate, as, " an human being," " an happy 
foresight," "an habit," "an higher order," "an half- 
deception," " an heaven," &c. &c. 

But the affectation is not confined to these small par- 
ticulars; it prevails in a most unconscionable degree 
through the general tenor of our preacher's language. He 
never goes on so much as two minutes in that manly 
simplicity of expression, which is natural to a man strenu- 
ously and solely intent on illustrating and enforcing his 
subject. The cast of his language compels an unwilling 
suspicion, that the purpose is not so much to enforce the 
subject, as to parade it ; and, in doing so, to play off the 
greatest possible number of quaint pranks of rhetorical 
manoeuvre. We doubt whether we ever saw, within an 
equal space, so many fantastic quiddities of diction, such a 
perverse study to twitch our strong, honest, manful, old 
language into uncouth postures and vain antics. "We know 
not how so to manage our own phrases, as to give a 
characteristic description of those which spoil these Ser- 
mons ; but we shall do right to quote a very small sample 
of them, and we are not aware that, as thus detached, 
they will sustain the injustice of being made to look more 
strange than they do in their own pages. " To him . . . 
it is worth the pains to cultivate mankind" — "the righteous 
man cultivates and studies all whom he approaches" — "the- 
submission paid to any human being, by the sacrifice of 
truth, is not meekness, nor humility, but an abject unre- 
sisting mind that barters Grod and Heaven for a moment of 
present ease " — "life brings with it many weary, weighing 
hours" — " a man is not saved by knowledge, and if he is 
puffed up with it, it is laughter and lightness before Grod " 
— "as deep as the roots of the earth" — "we have an 
irresistible tendency to paint ourselves as conscious of 
honour, or shame, after the outward and visible man has 
perished away" — "education . . . gives some deep life- 
marks, by which a human being may recover himself if he 
does wander '' — " and when we have meditated on these 
things, and filled our minds full of fear, and fair love, and 
holy hope," &c. — "repentance fills the soul full of sweet, 



310 SYDNEY SMITH'S SEBMONS. 

holy, everlasting godliness " — " proud integrity " — " human 
beings who bear to us the seeds of good-will" — "the eye 
tastes the light" — " the genuine soul of compassion is 
swift to figure and to conceive ; it glides into the body of 
the suffering wretch ; it writhes with his agony ; it faints 
with his hunger ; it weeps with his tears; it bleeds with his 
blood ; till, blind with the wise and heavenly delusion, it 
ministers to its own fancied sorrows, and labours for another 
self" — " the eternal frailty of sin at length degrades a man 
in his own eyes," — " bring it home to the chambers of your 
hearts " — " this spirit will bear of no backsliding, no 
wavering" — "it has ever been the memorable privilege of 
this island, to stand forward as the early and eager cham- 
pion of all the miseries of man" — "all feel the vanity of 
human wishes, and human designs, when they behold the 
arts, the arms, the industry of nations, overwhelmed by an 
Omnipotent destroyer, and their heritage tost to the chil- 
dren of blood " — " repentance fertilized into Christian 
righteousness " — " parent, and husband, and child, and 
friend, may all perish away, and leave us a wreck of time in 
the feeble solitude of age " — " he whom the dread of 
universal infamy, the horror of being degraded from his 
rank in society, the thought of an hereafter will not inspire 
with the love of truth, who prefers any temporary con- 
venience of a lie to a broad, safe and refulgent veracity, 
that man is too far sunk in the depths of depravity for any 
religious instructions he can receive in this place; the 
canker of disease is gone down to the fountains of his blood, 
and the days of his life are told" — "thus live the souls of 
the just in the dungeons of the flesh " — " a mind beau- 
tifully inlaid with the thoughts of angels " — " engrave upon 
his (an infant's) printless heart, the feelings of pain" — 
"the words . . . are irreligious, blasphemous, and bad" — 
"his stony rock" — "you are either sacramented for life 
to the first crude system you have adopted, or, &c." — "it 
shall be better even for the fool that says in his heart there 
is no God, than for him who looks up to a heaven that 
disgraces him, and pins his soul upon a faith which he 
smothers as a crime" — " the most beautiful feelings of the 
heart" — '"that breath still hangs in his nostrils" — "our 
Saviour, .... while he endeavours to throw open every 



AFFECTATION OF OEIGINALITY. 311 

compassionate heart as an asylum for the afflicted, and to 
make the good an altar for the miserable, Ac." — "repays 
them (parents) all that fine care which has averted the perils 
of infant life" — "it is fine to observe, that reason, &c." — 
" the sounds which are sung out before the throne of God." 

If this is really come to be the proper diction, our 
Taylors and Barrows, our Drydens and Addisons, have had 
their day : and the gravest subjects are now held forth in 
a slang, compounded of all the motley whimsicalities which 
conceited ingenuity can fabricate in imitation of the scrip- 
tural, the classical, the poetical, the commercial, the 
fashionable, and the vulgar dialects, and from its own sheer 
perversity and extravagance. This fantastic style is 
probably attributable in part, as we have already hinted, 
to the preacher's mind being too careless about his subject ; 
in which state its inventive activity is sufficiently exempt 
from the absorption of feeling to be desirous of amusing 
itself by flourishing all sorts of vanities along the composi- 
tion. And it is partly the result of a systematic endeavour 
to maintain a constant appearance of thinking originally. 
We have repeatedly observed the fact that there is no 
expedient by which a writer or speaker may so effectually 
persuade himself that he always thinks originally as to get 
a habit of expressing himself strangely. "We would there- 
fore entreat our divine to rid himself of this monstrous 
dialect, if it were only to preserve to himself the power of 
discriminating the comparative qualities of his own ideas 
and compositions, and even if his present mode of expression 
were not so offensive to correct taste. He does think 
originally sometimes ; but what is likely to be the conse- 
quence of an author's taking up a notion that he always 
does so ? 

It needs not be remarked that, in some of the sentences 
we have transcribed, the affected cast is fully as much in the 
form of the conception as in the mode of expression. 

Our literary dissatisfaction reaches its greatest height at 
those parts of these Sermons which are intended to be 
pathetic and sublime. It is not that the writer does not 
often make a judicious selection of the topics, scenes, and 
circumstances adapted to touch the heart ; nor that he does 
not sometimes attain considerable elevation of thought; 



312 SYDNEY SMITH'S SERMONS. 

but there is an utter want of that element of sentiment, or pas- 
sion, which is essential to pathetic and sublime eloquence. An 
energetic, simple feeling must prevail through every sentence, 
to the exclusion of every appearance of managing ingenuity 
or ostentation. The eifect of such compositions is just the 
reverse of that produced by those before us, which quell, 
and prostrate, and freeze our feelings, exactly in proportion 
to the measure of pathos or grandeur exhibited. We have 
an unaccountable impression, as if the author would laugh 
at us if we were affected by the pictures he is displaying. 
"We reproach ourselves for the feeling; but with our best 
efforts we still fail to divest ourselves of a feeling that the 
orator, while addressing the passions, is himself in a state of 
the utmost composure ; and our minds perversely, or 
perhaps complacently, prefer maintaining their tranquillity 
too, in gentle accordance with his, to the emotions which 
should seem to be demanded by those splendid or those 
pitiable objects which he places before us. But still we 
cannot like ourselves, while the most melancholy visions are 
opened before us of destroying armies, desolated countries, 
burning cities, murdered families, without moving us to terror 
or compassion ; while valorous and magnificent sentiments 
of patriotism excite in us such a very moderate degree of 
impatience to die for our country ; or while the more tender 
images of maternal and infantine distress, or female peni- 
tence, leave us capable of diverting so soon to indifferent 
objects. Nor can we like the oratory, which, in displaying 
these objects and scenes, continually reminds us, and keeps 
us perfectly cool by reminding us of rhetorical artifice and 
stage effect. 

To regain their own good opinion, our minds will have it 
that almost all the fault is in the exhibitor ; and that if he 
had been any thing more than a mere actor or rhetorician, 
there would have been no possibility of avoiding to melt or 
burn while beholding him make such representations. 
There is hardly one moment of true sympathetic beguile- 
ment; when there seems to be the most impassioned 
vehemence, the very rapture of eloquence, it is all seen 
through with perfect ease. The following rhapsody on 
veracity, for instance, seems to dash off much in the style 
and manner of an impetuous torrent of passion ; and really 



VTA.XT OF SIMPLE PATHOS. 313 

it indicates much force of conception; but the quaintly- 
expressed conceit of the "heart bursting in twain," the 
affected cast of several other expressions, and the artificial, 
hurrying rapidity, all concur — we should not say, to prove 
the writer, — but certainly to preserve the reader, as free 
from real passion, as in constructing or perusing one of the 
diurnal pieces of rhetoric on the wheel of fortune. 

" I have hitherto considered the love of truth on the negative 
side only, as it indicates what we are not to do ; but there is an 
heroic faith, ... a courageous love of truth, the truth of the 
Christian warrior, — an unconquerable love of justice, that would 
burst the heart in twain if it had not vent, which makes women 
men, — and men saints,* — and saints angels. . . . Often it has 
published its creed from amidst the flames ; . . . often it has 
reasoned under the axe, and gathered firmness from a mangled 
body ; . . . often it has rebuked the madness of the people ; . . . 
often it has burst into the chambers of princes to tear down the 
veil of falsehood, and to speak of guilt, of sorrow, and of death. 
Such was the truth which went down with Shadrach to the fiery 
furnace, and descended with Daniel to the lion's den. . . . Such 
was the truth which made the potent Felix tremble at his elo- 
quent captive ; such was the truth which roused the timid Peter 
to preach Christ crucified before the Sanhedrin of the Jews ; and 
such was the truth which enabled that Christ whom he did 
preach to die the death upon the cross." — Vol. I. p. 45. 

Two or three short passages belonging to the pathetic 
department will show that the orator can select his images 
with judgment and delineate them with strength ; but if any 
reader finds also the affecting simplicity of real feeling, w r e 
must submit to envy his better perceptions. The following 
is from a- Sermon for the Scotch Lying-in Hospital. 

" If the image of a parent forsaken at this time of her distress 
has aught in it which appeals to your compassion ; how awful 
the spectacle of a mother driven by hunger and despair to the 
destruction of her child. To see a gentle creature hurled from 
the bosom to which it turns — grasped by the hands that should 
have toiled for it, — mangled by her who should have washed it 
with her tears, and warmed it with her breath, and fed it with 

* In spite of the eloquent rapidity, there must here have been 
a pause, and a soft smile, to intimate to the female part of the 
auditory that this was only rhetoric. 



314 Sydney smith's sermons. 

her milk. You may enjoy a spectacle far different from this, you 
may see the tranquil mother on the bed of charity, and the 
peaceful child slumbering in her arms ; you may see her 
watching the trembling of every limb, and listening to the tide 
of the breath, and gazing through the dimness of tears, on the 
body of her child. The man who robs and murders for his bread 
would give charity to this woman ; good Christians, have mercy 
upon her, and death shall not snatch away your children ; they 
shall live and prosper ; mankind will love them ! God will 
defend them ! 

"I am speaking to those who will understand me when I 
remind you of the feelings of a poor, industrious man, whose 
earnings, exhausted in the purchase of food, disable him from 
making any provision at this season for the comforts of his wife. 
"When you see him toiling from sun to sun, and still unable to 
rise above the necessities of the present hour, will you not save 
to such a useful, honest being, the anguish of returning to a 
sick house ; the sight of agonies which he cannot relieve, and of 
wants to which he cannot administer 1 give me a little out of 
your abundance, and I will lift off this -weight from his heart ; 
listen to me when I kneel before you for humble, wretched 
creatures ; help me with some Christian offering, and I will give 
meat to the tender mother, and a pillow for her head, and a 
garment for the little child, and she shall bless God in the 
fulness of her heart. I fear I have detained you too long ; but 
the sorrows of many human beings rest upon me, and many 
mothers are praying that I may bring back bread for their 
children. I told them that this ancient Christian people had 
never yet abandoned the wretched, that they had ever listened 
to any minister of Christ who spoke for the poor ; 1 bade them 
be of good comfort, that God would raise them up friends, and 
when they showed me their childre r u, I vowed for you all, that not 
one of them should perish for hunger ; do not send me bach 
empty-handed to these victims of sorrow ; let not the woman 
and the suckling be driven from their comfortable home ; listen 
to the voice of the woman in travail, and minister to the wailing 
and spreading of hands ; if one social tie binds you to human 
life ; if you can tell how the mother's heart is twined about her 
child ; if you remember how women lighten the sorrows of life ; 
if you are the disciple of the Saviour Jesus to whom they kindly 
ministered, forsake them not this once, and God shall save you 
in the hour of death and the day of sharp distress." 

We have only one more remark on the composition. The 
thoughts and sentences are not formed into a proper series 
and sequence. Instead of the sense being carried on in a 



pjlley's memoies. 315 

train of finished sentences, each advancing it one distinct 
step straight forwards, it is dispersed out into a multitude 
of small pieces on either hand. Instead of advancing, if we 
may so express it, in a strong, narrow column, one thought 
treading firmly and closely after another, the composition 
presents a number of thoughts, collateral and related, rather 
than consequentially dependent, hurrying irregularly for- 
wards almost parallel to one another.* 



PALEY'S MEMOIES. 

Memoirs of William Paley, D.D. By G. W. Meadlet. To which 
is added an Appendix. 8vo. 1809. 

We are a little reluctant to accept this work as giving a 
true impression of the character of Dr. Paley. And yet the 
biographer appears an intelligent, well-informed, and candid 
man ; was personally acquainted with the Doctor during 
the last years of his life ; and has evinced a commendable 
diligence of inquiry respecting its former periods, of which 
various particulars have been communicated to him by some 
of Paley' s early and surviving friends. There is no doubt 
of the general accuracy of the book as a memorial of facts; 
and we have not much right to question whether a just esti- 
mate of the character is conveyed by the whole effect of the 
recitals and observations. Those parts of the sketch which 
are formed from the author's opinion, seem well warranted 
by those which consist of narration, and are quite in the 
same spirit. But, if this be a true delineation, we cannot 
but regret that truth had not authorized a different one. 

It was not, for our complacency, a fortunate circumstance, 
to have read these Memoirs about the same time that we 
had occasion to read the lives of some of the most eminent 
of the puritan divines, such as Baxter, Howe, and Philip 
Henry. In these men we beheld, beside the talents and 
learning which in them were but very secondary recom- 

* See Foster's Life and Correspondence, Yol. I., p. 339. — Ed. 



316 palet's memoies. 

mendations, the utmost sublimity of devotioual sentiment, 
such a zeal for the promotion of Christianity as absorbed 
their whole being, a promptitude and a heroic perseverance 
to make any and every sacrifice to the most refined dictates 
of conscience, a great indifference to considerations of 
emolument and fame, a contempt of vain customs and 
amusements, and therefore, in the combination and result of 
all these qualities, a character prodigiously elevated above 
anything that the world in general has ever consented to 
acknowledge as its standard of morals and religion. "We 
turned from these models of transcendent excellence, to 
inspect the character of Dr. Paley, as drawn by a very 
sensible friend and admirer. In high estimation of his 
talents and writings, we yield but in a very slight degree to 
this or any other of his eulogists ; and in those particular 
features of his works, which deny us the pleasure of ap- 
proving and admiring, we are very unwilling to perceive 
indications of qualities, which a religious observer must be 
compelled to disapprove in his character. But in viewing 
the character displayed in the book before us, we find every 
tendency to that enthusiasm, with which we contemplate 
the highest order of human excellence, completely arrested. 
"We calculate with pensive wonder the width of moral space 
through which we find we have been suddenly conveyed, 
when we contrast the affectionate veneration, and the pas- 
sionate aspirings to resemblance, which we have just felt in 
thinking of those men, several of whose names we have 
mentioned, with the state of our feelings in the company of 
the subject of these Memoirs. There is presented to us, 
indeed, a combination of highly respectable qualities ; love 
of truth, independence of character with respect to the rich 
and great, orderly attention to the concerns and ministra- 
tions of the church, impartiality in discharging the duties of 
a magistrate, kindness in domestic relations, and patience 
in suffering. Now, with regard to the ordinary tribe of 
divines, we suppose it would be thought very illiberal to 
insist, that something more than this is desirable in a man 
who is appointed an instructor, monitor, and pattern to 
mankind, in relation to infinitely the most momentous of 
their concerns : the present times are indulgent in fixing 
the standard of clerical piety. Passing over the question, — 



DEFECTS OE HIS EELIGIOUS OHAEACTEE. 317 

whether, with the awful importance of religion, and the 
nature of the consequent responsibility of its teachers, full 
in our view, we are bound to concur in this law of indul- 
gence, — we may at least confidently assume, that an emi- 
nently conspicuous and powerful advocate of Christianity, 
ought to have been distinguished by a spirit peculiarly sym- 
pathetic with that of the Founder, and that of the apostles, 
martyrs, and confessors of this religion. For surely he that 
in modern times has a more impressive view than almost all 
his contemporaries of its evidence and excellence, possesses 
something strikingly in common with its first promulgators. 
His more luminous view of the truth and divine excellence 
of the religion, places him on a ground of nearly equal pri- 
vilege with that of those persons, who commenced its dis- 
ciples and advocates actually amidst the prodigies that 
attended its first introduction. But to have embraced the 
religion under the immediate impression of those miracles, 
which gave direct proof from heaven of its being not only 
true, but, in the divine estimation, of inexpressible import- 
ance, and then to have been less than ardently zealous in 
the exercise and promotion of it, would have been deemed 
an unpardonable inconsistency. It would have been ex- 
pected, and even required, of that man, that he should be 
inspired and actuated by the divine principles thus received 
into his mind, as much almost as if a spirit had descended 
from heaven to inhabit his person, and determine the whole 
system of his sentiments and agency. And, therefore, 
nearly the same result is justly required from the man in 
later times, who, being favoured with a superlative clearness 
of conviction, is placed in nearly as high a rank of privilege 
as the original converts and advocates. 

If this be true, the Memoirs of Dr. Paley cannot be read 
without considerable regret. Sincerely gratified to observe 
and applaud his excellent and amiable qualities, we yet in 
vain endeavour to avoid perceiving a very serious deficiency 
of what we think the spirit of primitive Christianity. Not- 
withstanding much moral worth, there is something un- 
saintly spread over the character. A respectable man of 
the world seems to meet us, when we wish to see a person 
that will remind us of the Apostles. It is not to be noted 
as a fault, that Paley had not the great passions which, 



318 palet's memoirs. 

when combined with great talents, can make a character 
sublime : his constitution denied him that warmth and 
energy which can throw the mind into fits of enthusiasm, 
which can make good men captivating, and bad ones danger- 
ously seductive. However favourable this incapability of 
great emotions might be to purely intellectual operations, 
its obvious tendency was to withhold the mind from being 
completely grasped by that religion, of which the efficacy 
depends so much on the affections ; and to deprive the 
clearest intellectual representations made in its favour, in 
preaching and writing, of that very powerful principle of 
efficacy which they derive from the mingling sensibility, 
which can give a character of sentiment and vitality to 
every argument, without in the least injuring its logic. 
The natural incapability of great emotions operates very 
strongly to prevent the prevalence of the Christian spirit 
in the man, and in the minister and vindicator of religion, 
unless an appropriate discipline is adopted to obviate this 
injurious effect. That discipline would consist, in habitu- 
ating the mind to dwell much on the most solemn and 
affecting views of revelation, in employing a considerable 
portion of time in exercises strictly devotional, in reading 
those writers who have infused an irresistible pathos into 
their Christian discussions, and in frequently seeking the 
society of those who are distinguished by zeal and devo- 
tional feelings as well as intelligence. In these Memoirs it 
is not made to appear that Dr. Paley had recourse to such a 
moral regimen. 

"We are not informed of any special anxiety in his early 
instructors to make the impressions of religion deep in his 
mind. At college he confessedly associated, during the first 
years, with some young men of very light character. Among 
the many friends with whom he was more or less intimate 
during his subsequent life, there are very few names that 
have ever been distinguished for elevated piety. We are 
not told that, in the society of accomplished men, whom he 
must often have found strangers or enemies to Christianity, 
he was watchful to insinuate its claims. "We are not told 
that, amidst that general repute for deficient piety, and for 
worldly motives and habits, into which he found the clerical 
character fallen, he was earnest to display, in the person of 



SECX7LAE HABITS. 319 

the ablest defender of religion, a striking pattern of that 
moral separation, that refined sanctity, and that superiority 
even to all suspicion of acceding and adhering to the eccle- 
siastical profession on any terms involving the sacrifice of 
conscientious principles to worldly interests, without which 
the clerical character never will or can be revered by the 
people. We lament to feel that we are not contemplating 
a character, which we dare hold up for such a pattern, in a 
memoir which represents Dr. Paley's habits as very much 
assimilated to those of what may be called respectable men 
of the world ; which condescends to tell that he " frequently 
mixed in card-parties, and was considered a skilful player at 
whist ;" which informs us, that even when approaching near 
to old age, " he still retained his predilection for theatrical 
amusements, especially when any eminent performer from 
the metropolis appeared upon a neighbouring stage," and 
that " in a provincial theatre he always seated himself as 
near as possible to the front of the centre box ;" none of 
which circumstances are adapted to allay the disapproba- 
tion and disgust with which we see him surrendering his 
integrity, according to our judgment of the case, in the 
affair of subscription. Nor does it give us all the pleasing 
images which poets, and indeed much more sober men, have 
associated with the character of a Christian pastor, when we 
see a clergyman, much after the manner of an exciseman, 
removed from living to living, in a long succession of still 
advancing emoluments, and without any mention, as far as 
we remember, that either the minister or the people suffered 
much from regret in these separations. We are very far 
from regarding him as a hunter of preferment, or as capable 
of practising any degree of sycophancy to what are called 
great men, either in the church or the state. He was most 
honourably superior to those vile arts of servility and 
flattery which have so often been rewarded with titles and 
emoluments ; and he signally proved his independence, by 
publishing, at a time when he must have regarded his ad- 
vancement in the church as depending, such opinions on 
religious liberty and the principles of political science, as 
could not fail to be very offensive to that class of persons, 
whom the aspirants to preferment find it their interest, and 
therefore their duty to please. But though his successive 



320 paley's memoirs. 

augmentations of emolument, obtained by means of plural- 
ities and of changes of situation, were conferred without 
being solicited, and conferred on eminent desert, yet the 
whole course of these successes carries in our view, a strange 
resemblance to a trading concern. It looks just as if cures 
of souls were things measured and proportioned out, on an 
ascending scale of pecuniary value, for the purpose of hand- 
some emolument to men, who have happened to apply talents 
to the service of the church, which might fairly have been 
expected to make a fortune if exerted in some other depart- 
ment. The consideration of the spiritual welfare of these 
successive allotments of souls, and the beneficent effect that 
would result from that affectionate attachment which might 
grow between the minister and his people, if he did not 
officiate among them just as a man who is obliged to stop a 
while in his journey toward some richer parish, appear really 
as but very secondary matters. 

In reverting to all we have said in dissatisfaction with the 
religious character of Dr. Paley, it is right to observe that 
we cannot know precisely how much of the blame is due to 
his biographer. Certainly, the specific fact of his setting his 
people the example of pushing into a theatre, which every 
body that has been there knows to be a school of profane- 
ness and immorality, will alone perfectly warrant a large 
and sweeping conclusion as to the defectiveness of his reli- 
gious feelings and habits, and as to the strange laxity of his 
conception of the proprieties of consistency for a distin- 
guished advocate of the religion of Christ ; yet there might, 
at times, be better aspects of the character, and his posthu- 
mous Sermons lead us to believe there certainly were. A 
biographer who had felt that religion is the most important 
thing which can prevail or be wanting in any human being, 
would have been eager to bring these aspects fully into view. 
But we are not permitted to know whether this writer 
regards religion, Christianity, or whatever we may call it, as 
anything more than one of the many uncertain and unim- 
portant subjects of human speculation. He judges it indeed, 
a very proper professional ground of clerical exertion : an 
ecclesiastic should be clever in his own business; Dr. 
Paley proved himself eminently so in his "Evidences of 
Christianity j" and, therefore, he deserved well of the church 



paley's early life. 321 

as an institution that- has honours and emoluments to confer. 
This is about the amount of what we are enabled to collect 
of the present biographer's estimate of religion. And there- 
fore we regard him as totally unqualified to mark the points 
of religious excellence or defect in any character. If to 
those who had the privilege of acquaintance and friendship, 
Dr. Paley did sometimes disclose a considerable degree of 
devotional feeling, a writer like the present would probably 
be unwilling to display the philosopher verging toward the 
"fanatic." Or, if toward the close of his life, he had been 
heard to express bitter regret, for not having lived more in 
the spirit of that religion which he had defended (not that 
we ever heard he did this), our author would have carefully 
concealed a weakness so symptomatic of decaying under- 
standing. 

The religious character, therefore, of this eminent man, 
remaining a subject for the discernment and justice of some 
other biographer, we recommend the volume before us, as 
a sensible, well-written account of the chief occurrences in 
his life, and of the prominent distinctions of his talents and 
social habits. It has the particular value of giving a larger 
portion of characteristic anecdotes, than is usually afforded 
in the memoirs of a scholar and author. These anecdotes 
show a striking identity of character in all the stages of 
Paley's life. In the school-boy and in the archdeacon we 
have the same gay humour, logical shrewdness, attention to 
matters of fact, preference of practical to theoretical prin- 
ciples, moderate but constant regard to worldly interest, and 
perfect exemption from the pertubations of romantic senti- 
ment. His father early entertained a high estimate of his 
faculties, and was m^eh nearer the truth in his predictions 
than usually happens in matters of parental prophecy. "My 
son is now gone to college, — he'll turn out a great man — 
very great indeed, — I'm certain of it : for he has by far the 
clearest head I ever met with in my life." (P. 7.) At 
school he was — 

" more attentive to things than words, and ardent in the pur- 
suit of knowledge of every kind. He was curious in making 
inquiries about mechanism, whenever he had an opportunity of 
conversing with any workmen, or others capable of affording 
him satisfactory information. In his mind he was uncommonly 

Y 



322 palet's memoirs. 

active ; in his body quite the reverse. He was a bad horseman, 
and incapable of those exertions which required adroitness in 
the use of the hands or feet. He consequently never engaged in 
the ordinary sports of school-boys ; but he was fond of angling — 
an amusement in which he did not then excel, though his attach- 
ment to it seems to have continued through life. He was much 
esteemed by his school-fellows, as possessing many good qualities, 
and being at all times a pleasant and lively companion. He 
frequently amused the young circle by the successful mimicking 
of a mountebank quack-doctor, in vending his powders. Having 
one year attended the assizes at Lancaster, he was so much 
taken with the proceedings of the criminal court, that on his 
return to school, he used to preside there as a judge, and to have 
the other boys brought up before him as prisoners for trial. 
This circumstance, trifling as it may appear to the superficial 
observer, is not unimportant, as it marks his earliest attention 
to the practice of courts of justice, and to criminal law." — P. 3. 

His mind seems to have possessed a natural conformity 
to those rigid laws of thought, to which the greatest number 
of thinking men can but imperfectly subject themselves by 
the severest discipline ; and we predict the envy of nineteen 
students in twenty, and confess our own, in reading part of 
the following paragraph : — 

" Being thus left to himself (at college) he applied, however, 
most assiduously to those studies required by the university; in 
the pursuit of which he had frequent opportunity to show the 
concentration of mind which he possessed in an extraordinary 
degree. His room (for he seldom locked his door by night or 
day) used to be the common rendezvous of the idle young men 
of his college ; yet, notwithstanding all their noise and nonsense, 
he might be often seen in one corner, as composed and attentive 
to what he was reading as if he had been alone. But as, besides 
the interruption which such loungers must at times have given 
him, he was remarkable for indulging himself in bed till a very 
late hour in the morning, and for being much in company after 
dinner, at tea, and at a coffee-house at nine o'clock in the evening, 
it is probable that he was more indebted to observation and 
reflection than to books for the general improvement of his 
mind."— P. 9. 

We should not be quite so much pleased as the biographer 
seems to be, to acknowledge that perhaps we owe Dr. Paley's 
great works to a particular incident that decided him to a 



PALET AT COLLEGE. 323 

more studious course ; though we would infinitely rather be 
indebted for them to that, or even any meaner cause, than 
not possess them at all. 

" In the year 1795, during one of his visits to Cambridge, Dr. 
Paley, in the course of a conversation on the subject, gave the 
following account of the early part of his academical life ; and 
it is here given on the authority, and in the very words, of a 
gentleman who was present at the time, as a striking instance 
of the peculiar frankness with which he was in the habit of 
relating the adventures of his youth. 

" I spent the first two years of my undergraduateship happily, 
but unprofitable. I was constantly in society where we were 
not immoral, but idle and rather expensive. At the commence- 
ment of my third year, however, after having left the usual 
party at rather a late hour in the evening, I was awakened at 
five in the morning by one of my companions, who stood at my 

bedside and said — ' Paley, I have been thinking what a d 'd 

fool you are. I could do nothing, probably, were I to try, and 
can afford the life I lead : you could do everything, and cannot 
afford it. I have had no sleep during the whole night on account 
of these reflections, and I am now come solemnly to inform you, 
that if you persist in your indolence, I must renounce your 
society. 

" ' I was so struck,' Dr. Paley continued, ' with the visit and 
visitor, that I lay in bed great part of the day, and formed my 
plan. I ordered my bed-maker to prepare my fire every evening, 
in order that it might be lighted by myself. I rose at five, read 
during the whole of the day, and just before the closing of gates 
(nine o'clock) I went to a neighbouring coffee-house, where I 
constantly regaled upon a mutton chop and a dose of milk- 
punch. And thus, on taking my bachelor's degree, I became 
senior wrangler.' 

" Thus fortunately was Dr. Paley roused to a full exertion of 
his faculties before his habits were completely formed ; and to 
this singular adventure may, perhaps, be attributed, not only 
his successful labours, as a college tutor, but the invaluable 
productions of his pen." — P. 193. 

A very entertaining account is given of his college dispu- 
tations; of his becoming an assistant in an academy at Green- 
wich ; of his gaining an university prize by the best disserta- 
tion on the comparative merits of the Stoic and Epicurean 
philosophy, in which he was the advocate of the latter ; of 
his entering on the clerical office, and of his tutorship, of 
several years' duration, in his college, in which he was asso- 

t 2 



324 palet's memoies. 

ciated with Mr. Law, son of the Bishop of Carlisle, with 
whom, and with Dr. Jebb, and other distinguished persons, 
he maintained a lasting friendship. There is an interesting 
description of his manner of lecturing, on metaphysics, 
morals, the Greek Testament, and divinity. We sincerely 
join in the writer's regret, that some of these lectures, espe- 
cially the illustrations of Locke, Clarke, and Butler, and of 
the New Testament, had not been preserved. They were all 
given without any set formality or previous arrangement of 
words ; he adopted much of a conversational manner, asked 
questions, and permitted and induced, by his shrewdness 
and humour, occasional short intervals of hilarity, and 
employed, with the utmost success, every expedient for pre- 
cluding the dulness and inattention usually incident to such 
exercises. We must transcribe the conclusion of the account 
of the lectures on the Greek Testament. 

" But he carefully avoided all sectarian disputes, taking for 
his model, Locke on the Reasonableness of Christianity, and On 
the Epistles, works which he frequently recommended. The 
Thirty-nine Articles of Keligion he treated as mere articles of 
peace, the whole of which it was impossible the framers could 
expect any one person to believe, as upon dissection they would 
be found to contain about two hundred and forty distinct and 
independent propositions, many of them inconsistent with each 
other. They must, therefore, he said, be considered as proposi- 
tions, which, for the sake of keeping peace among the different 
sects of reformers, who originally united in composing the Church 
of England, it was agreed should not be impugned or preached 
against. The chief points insisted on by Mr. Paley to his pupils 
were, that they should listen to God, and not to man ; that they 
should exert their faculties in understanding the language of 
holy men of old ; that they should free themselves, as much as 
dossible, from all prejudices of birth, education, and country ; 
and that they should not call any one their master in religion 
but Jesus Christ." 

The last sentence the author quotes (with a reference) 
from the Universal Magazine for 1805. The opinion advanced 
in the above extract was afterwards matured into a short 
and well-known chapter on Subscription, in the Moral and 
Political Philosophy, where it is stated that — 

" they who contend, that nothing less can justify subscription 



ON SUBSCRIPTION TO THE ARTICLES. 325 

to the Thirty-nine Articles, than the actual belief of each and 
every separate proposition contained in them, must suppose, that 
the legislature expected the consent of ten thousand men, and 
that in perpetual succession — not to one controverted proposi- 
tion, but to many hundreds. It is difficult to conceive how this 
could be expected by any who observed the incurable diversity 
of human opinion upon all subjects short of demonstration." — 
Vol. I. p. 217. 

It is not a little mortifying to see a man so superlatively 
intelligent, and in many points so honest, as Paley, and to 
see so vast a number of other men who declare themselves 
moved by the Holy G-host, descending to this renunciation 
of the simplicity of reason and conscience. Dr. Paley knew, 
and we are confident that every individual, who after serious 
consideration subscribes the Articles, knows, that the framers 
and imposers of them did intend and require that every 
proposition they contain should be believed by the persons 
subscribing them. He knew, and they all know, that in 
provident contemplation of the quibbles, reservations, and 
evasions to which men might be dishonest enough to have 
recourse, in order to obtain the benefits of the Establishment 
without satisfying the intentions of its founders, the autho- 
ritative instruments of sanction and prescription which 
accompany these articles are expressed with the minute and 
pleonastic phraseology of legal precaution. They know that 
the assent is required precisely to " all and every of them ;" 
and that in the " plain and full meaning thereof," and " in 
the literal and grammatical sense," " the least difference 
from the said articles" being strictly " prohibited." They 
know that the terms of the imposition are as precise, and 
comprehensive, and absolute, as language can make them ; 
insomuch that if a series of articles, in the nature of a poli- 
tical or commercial arrangement, or any other secular insti- 
tution, were accompanied by the definitive sanction of the 
institutors in forms and terms of authorization so carefully 
select, express, and comprehensive, the man who should 
pretend to raise a question, whether the institutors really 
meant "all and every" of those articles to be strictly autho- 
ritative on every person entering on the benefit of that 
institution, would instantly come to be regarded as unfit for 
civilized society. It is something much worse than trifling 



326 



PALEY'S MEMOIES. 



to allege, that the imposers could not intend to exact a full 
assent because the articles contain several hundred proposi- 
tions, and some of them contradictory to others. That 
errors, and even contradictions may, according to the opinion 
of the examiner, be detected in a creed drawn up by fallible 
men, is no reason for surmising that they did not them- 
selves solemnly believe it in every part. And as to the ar- 
gument — that to expect ten thousand men, and that in 
perpetual succession, to believe all these propositions, is 
so gross an absurdity, that it is impossible to suppose the 
framers and imposers of the articles could really expect 
such a thing, — we may observe, that it would indicate an 
extremely slender knowledge of ecclesiastical history, to 
question whether the heads of churches and states have 
ever been capable of assuming it to be a possible thing to 
effect a uniformity of faith, and a reasonable thing to 
expect and command it. But there is no occasion for 
argument ; the certain matter of fact is, that the framers 
and imposers of the Thirty-nine Articles did require this 
complete assent. Let the man, therefore, who is resolved 
to maintain freedom of opinion, honestly take the ecclesias- 
tical institution as what it is, and he may fairly make, if he 
pleases, as many objections as it has articles, while he 
preserves his consistency and integrity by declining to 
place himself within its obligations. But it is meanly 
disingenuous, nor can we comprehend how it can be other- 
wise than utterly immoral, for this man, in order to enable 
himself to pursue his own interests by entering the church, 
to pretend that its grand law of doctrine must not and 
cannot mean that, which it has notoriously taken all possible 
care to express that it absolutely does mean, and absolutely 
does enjoin. By extending this priviledge of conscience a 
few degrees further, a Mahometan or Pagan may subscribe 
the articles and enter the church, if he has any object to 
gain by it. He may say, " Here is a large formulary of 
opinions, comprising several hundred propositions, not all 
even consistent with one another. Now it had been most 
absurd for the imposers to require that every subscriber 
should believe all these ; it is absurd therefore to suppose 
they did require it. And since this formula, which is the 
only authoritative prescription by which I can learn what 



ON SUBSCRIPTION TO THE ABTICLES. 327 

I am required to believe, gives me no certain information 
on the subject, I may fairly regard the whole affair as a 
matter of discretion." 

Dr. Paley represents, that the animus imponentis must be 
taken as the rule for the degree of assent required in sub- 
scribing the articles. Let us then, in imagination, go back 
for a moment to the time when the articles were solemnly 
appointed to be perpetually imposed ; and let us suppose a 
man like Dr. Paley to have presented himself before the 
bishops who framed, and the legislature which imposed them, 
to inquire concerning the animus, the real, plain meaning 
and intention, with which these articles were composed and 
enforced. "Would not the reply have been most indignant, 
or most contemptuous ? " You ask the intention ; why, 
you can read the articles, can you not ? Our intention is of 
course conveyed in what we have solemnly and deliberately 
set forth. And we intend all that is set forth ; for would it 
become us, and on such an occasion, to employ ourselves in 
the construction of needless and nugatory propositions ? 
And we conceive we have enounced our propositions with 
sufficient clearness; it is not possible you are come here 
to insult us with an insinuation, that the result of our 
grave, deliberate, and combined labours, is an assemblage of 
jargon which needs an explanatory declaration to tell what 
we mean by it all. As to what you surmise about our 
object being to keep Papists, Anabaptists, and Puritans out 
of the church, it would be no concern of yours, if that were 
our principal object ; your business is with the articles as 
we have jndged it proper to set them forth ; but in fact, the 
exclusion of these sects is only one among the several good 
ends to be answered ; we mean to secure the purity of our 
church by excluding all that the full and plain meaning of 
our articles will exclude. It is, therefore, your concern, as 
you will answer it at your peril, to maintain all and every 
of them inviolably, in their true and literal meaning." 

As to what Dr. Paley is stated to have maintained in his 
Lectures, that "the articles must be considered as pro- 
positions which, for the sake of keeping peace among the 
different sects of Reformers, who originally united in com- 
posing the Church of England, it w r as agreed should not be 
impugned or preached against," it is sufficient to observe, 



328 paley's memoies. 

that these propositions are, by his own account, so very 
numerous, that it is quite impossible for any man to preach 
on religion at all, without either impugning or directly 
adopting a very great number of them. Tney are so minute 
and comprehensive, that they leave but a very small space 
for the practice of that reserve and avoidance implied in this 
" keeping peace," if the phrase has any meaning. 

In short, the national church either has a defined doc- 
trinal basis, or it has not. If it has not, what a mockery 
has been practising in its name on the nation and on 
Christendom for several centuries, in representing it as, 
next the Scriptures, the most faithful depository, and the 
grandest luminary of the Christian religion ; while the truth 
has been, as we are now called upon by some of its ablest 
members to understand, that it has really, during all this 
time, had no standard of doctrine at all, — the instrument, 
purporting to be such, having been in fact nothing more 
than a petty contrivance to keep out two or three disagree- 
able sects. If the church has a defined doctrinal basis, that 
basis can be no other than the Thirty-nine Articles. And 
these articles, taken in their literal meaning, are essential to 
the constitution of the church ; else, they are still nothing 
at all ; they impose no obligation, and can preserve or pre- 
clude no modes of opinion whatever. And their being thus 
essential to the church, means that they are essential to be, 
all and every of them, faithfully believed and taught by all 
its ministers. Therefore, finally, every man who says he 
cannot subscribe, or has not subscribed, the articles, in this 
upright manner, says, in other words, that he has no 
business in the church. It is not the question what the 
articles ought to have been ; he must take them as they are ; 
and by the same rule that he must take any one of them he 
must take them all, as they all stand exactly on the same 
authority. Till they are modified or changed by that 
authority which was competent to constitute, and is com- 
petent to alter, the ecclesiastical institution, any clergyman 
who remains in the church disbelieving any one proposition 
in its articles, violates the sanctity and integrity of the 
church, and, as far as we are able to comprehend, must 
violate his own conscience. He cannot but know, that on 
the same principle on which he presumes to invalidate one 



I 



EOSE on fox's htstoet. 329 

article, other men may invalidate any or all of the remainder, 
and thus the church may become a perfect anarchy, a 
theatre of confusion and all manner of heresies. According 
to this view of the subject, Dr. Paley had no right to enter 
the church, or remain in it 5 aud by doing so, he dishonoured 
his principles. He is thus placed in a striking and unfortu- 
nate contrast with such men as Jebb and Lindsey, whose 
consciences were of too high a quality to permit such an 
unsound and treacherous connexion with the Established 
Church ; and in a parallel, not less striking and unfortunate, 
with such a man as Stone ! 

This ungracious subject has unexpectedly detained us so 
long, that no room is left for other observations which had 
occurred to us in reading these Memoirs. By means of his 
situations in the church, and of his writings, Dr. Paley 
appears to have made a good fortune. His biographer 
loudly complains, notwithstanding, of the scanty patronage 
and preferment in which he was fated to acquiesce • and in 
a strain that really sounds very much like saying, that these 
things were the appropriate and grand reward for which he 
was to prosecute all his labours. We have no doubt, how- 
ever, that Dr. Paley had motives of a higher order than his 
friend seems capable of appreciating; while, with all our 
perception of his very serious defects, we rejoice in the 
benefit that present and future ages will derive from those 
writings in which he has so powerfully defended religion. 



EOSE ON POX'S HISTOEY. 

Observations on the Historical Work of the Right Honourable Charles 
James Fox. By the Eight Honourable George Eose. With 
the Narrative of the Events which occurred in the Enterprise of 
Earl of Argyle, in 1685. By Sir Patrice: Hume. 4to. 1809. 

It is presumed that a certain portion of mankind hate the 
intellectual despotism which is felt to be maintained by pre- 
eminent talents, in however liberal a spirit they are exerted ; 
and are therefore extremely gratified to see men of ordinary 



330 EOSE ON" fox's history. 

abilities gain an advantage, in any instance, through industry 
or good luck, over men of the highest genius. To the read- 
ing part of this class of persons the present volume will be 
peculiarly acceptable ; and on the other hand, to those who 
are tempted absolutely to worship great talents, it will not 
be a little mortifying, though salutary as a check on idolatry, 
to see such a man as Mr. Fox write a book to be refuted by 
such a man as Mr. Eose. The case is made still worse, when 
we recollect that the illustrious historian was several years 
in preparing his work ; and find the present writer modestly 
pleading, in extenuation of any imperfections in his own 
performance, that he was obliged to compose it " in little 
more than the same number of weeks," and that too " in the 
midst of almost unremitting attention to official duties, which 
take equally from the disembarrassment of the mind as from 
the leisure of time." In whatever degree this examiner 
appears to be successful in the detection of errors in the 
historian, we are so much more confirmed in the opinion (to 
which we could not help inclining ever since first hearing of 
Mr. Fox's undertaking), that he might have found far better 
employment for his incomparable talents. It was obvious, 
and the present publication makes it still more obvious, what 
loads of old records and tedious worm-eaten documents it 
would be necessary to ransack, in order to do complete 
historical justice to the period in question; an employment 
inexpressibly dull, consumptive of time, repressive of 
eloquence, and productive of diminutive results, compared 
with the quantity of labour. That a person like the writer 
before us should be so occupied, under some adequate se- 
curity for his impartiality in exhibiting those results, we 
think is excellent ; and we are most sincerely sorry that 
such a troublesome pressure of " official duties," (including 
of course the really very onerous toil of counting all their 
emoluments) should have diverted so much of his industry from 
so proper a department. But to occupy a mind like that of 
Fox, in such a business, would be, as Burke said, " to yoke 
a courser of the sun to a mud-cart." 

The various persons who may, in the present time, be 
designing each to become the historian of some long period, 
or some remote nation, will not derive much animation or 
confidence to their hopes, from seeing how many questions 



YMTDICATION OE SIR PATRICK HTJME. 331 

of fact, within the narrow compass of a short modern period 
of own history, may be kept in a state of interminable con- 
troversy ; and that even the extensive and sagacious inqui- 
sition of Mr Eox might fail to collect all the information 
necessary for such a section of history. It will not be a very 
gratifying consideration, that half a moderately long life will 
hardly suffice for the mere purpose of research, unless they 
they should prudently choose a period or country concerning 
which there are very few documents, — that the correct and 
decisive evidence, on this and the other doubtful point, 
perhaps lies in some chest of mouldy papers, which they do 
not even know to exist, — and that after they shall have 
bequeathed a splendid performance to posterity, and perhaps 
made their exit in the proud confidence of immortal fame, 
somebody that shall be at once inquisitive and dull enough 
to rummage the said chest, may come and cut up some of 
their most refined theories, sage reflections, or eloquent 
declamations, by producing a quotation from some manuscript 
letter, or memoir, just barely legible, of Lord A., or Sir 
William B., the mirrors, in their day, of ministerial or 
diplomatic wisdom, virtue, and intrigue. 

"When Pox's interesting posthumous fragment, accom- 
panied by Lord Holland's observations on the anxious and 
elaborate accuracy of the historian, came into the hands of 
Mr. Rose, it was very natural that the whole resources of 
his ample knowledge of our political history should be put 
in requisition ; and that certain feelings respecting Eox and 
the political principles of which he was the champion, might 
prompt a renewed and more minute scrutiny into some par- 
ticular points of the history. Fox's work, besides, in the 
part which narrates the expedition of Argyle, contains some 
accusations of Sir Patrick Hume, who was the ancestor of 
a late Lord Marchmont, who was the particular friend of 
Mr. Eose, and " deposited with him, as a sacred trust, all 
the MSS. of his family, with an injunction to make use of 
them, if Mr. Eose should ever find it necessary." Of course 
it has become absolutely necessary, in consequence of Mr. 
Fox's imputations, to publish some of these papers, espe- 
cially Sir Patrick's narrative of the expedition. It was 
impossible that any honest man in England should enjoy 
peace of mind, till he should have it on Sir Patrick's own 



332 BOSE ok pox's histoet. 

word that he was not a factious officer in that expedition, and 
did not contribute to its unfortunate termination. Neither 
was it possible to suppose that the events which were taking 
place in Spain at the time dated at the end of the preface to 
this work, or the events taking place 'on the banks of the 
Danube about the time of its publication, might occupy the 
public mind too strongly for it to become deeply interested 
in hearing of the intimate friendship which subsisted 
between Lord Marchmont and Mr. George Eose. Every- 
thing, therefore, relating to Sir Patrick Hume and his 
descendants, and their friendships, is with the utmost pro- 
priety given to the world in this costly quarto. It is one of 
the calamities of this nation that there cannot be found 
and published ample documents relating to every man 
whose name has been mentioned, and whose conduct has 
been incorrectly or questionably stated, throughout the 
whole history of all our civil wars. This would contribute 
to allay the apprehensions with which we are sometimes 
visited, lest the good people of England should be impelled, 
for the pure sake of a little stimulus to the faculties, into 
another civil war, by the intolerable tcedium vitce, occasioned 
by their having absolutely nothing to read and nothing 
to do. 

"With respect to the observations on the other parts of 
Eox's work, we ought to recall any surmise we have inad- 
vertently hinted, as to motives which might be supposed to 
have induced a staunch political opponent to ransack all 
manner of records, printed and unprinted, for means of 
invalidating the statements or reasonings of the historian. 
It is only, however, in the case of an eminently and noto- 
riously disinterested person, like the present writer, that 
we can feel ourselves bound to give entire credit, when he 
represents himself as actuated in such an undertaking by a 
pure love of truth and the public good. Conformably with 
so worthy a motive for entering on a work, it would seem 
that, in this one rare instance, the execution of it has been 
regulated by a still more conscientiously rigid impartiality, 
than if the performance animadverted on had not been that 
of an opponent. For, adverting to the unfavourable impres- 
sion with which the public may receive such a work, from a 
" man who had been very long honoured with the confidence, 



INTEODXJCTORT OBSERVATIONS. 333 

and enjoyed the affectionate friendship of Mr. Fox's political 
opposer,'"' he is pleased to add, "I am certain that from this 
feeling I have been more scrupulous both of my authorities 
and of my own opinions, than I might have been in com- 
menting on the work of any other author." This public 
spirit in the motives, and this annihilation of all party pre- 
judices in the execution, were peculiarly necessary, and are 
highly acceptable, in a work, which, though professing the 
utmost admiration of Mr. Fox, and acquitting him of all 
wilful misrepresentation, rests its chief claim to attention on 
its engagement to prove, that he habitually contemplated 
the characters and events of our history through the per- 
verting medium of his favourite political principles. 

After all this disturbance given to so many dusty reposi- 
tories of national and personal records, we will acknowledge 
our attention and solicitudes are too much engrossed by- 
more recent events, and by prospects at present opening, to 
comprehend how the people of these times should feel any 
great concern about the principal matters of fact or opinion 
which this writer contests with the historian. While stand- 
ing amidst the ruins of Europe, — and while witnessing the 
rapid dilapidation of that famed constitution, the supposed 
final consolidation of which has usually been accounted the 
greatest work of that age, to a part of which the perform- 
ances of Mr. Fox and this author relate, — we really think 
that now no questions can well be of more trifling conse- 
quence, than whether the execution of Straiford or Charles I. 
was the more illegal, — whether General Monk was the very 
basest man in the army, or only about as bad as his neigh- 
bours, — whether the money which Charles II. and James 
received from the French king was for the purpose of cor- 
rupting the parliament, or of enabling them to do without 
it, — and whether the establishment of despotism or of 
Popery was uppermost in James's designs. 

There is some matter both of information and amusement, 
and much good humour, in Mr. Eose's long and desultory 
introduction. But what delights us above everything, is 
some exquisite moral reflection. After exposing the emula- 
tion in baseness of the leaders of the "Whigs and Tories in 
the reign of Queen Anne, our veteran patriot utters the fol- 
lowing observation : " In truth, the conduct of many of 



834 HOSE on fox's histoey. 

the leaders of both parties affords a disgusting picture of 
what men may be induced to do by a love of power and of 
situation." "We cannot express how much we were gratified 
by this appropriate and Catonic reflection from Mr. Greorge 
Rose; and by the consideration that, notwithstanding the 
corruption of these times, there are still some venerable 
statesmen, whose independence in the senate, and whose 
self-denial with regard to public emolument, give them an 
eminent right thus to condemn their corrupt predecessors. 
The popular cry of the present times has made it a duty, 
we think, to transcribe for our readers a valuable piece of 
moral philosophy, by which we have been much edified our- 
selves. 

" Whether in another situation he (Mr. Fox) might have acted 
according to the demonstration of his principles in his book, 
cannot perhaps with certainty be asserted ; the difference in 
situation in the individual gives rise to different views from 
different opportunities of information, without supposing any 
inconsistency in the change. Every man conversant in matters 
of state, will be cautious of imputing a fluctuation of mind, or 
dereliction of principle, to the conduct of a minister, because it 
is different from that which in opposition he supposed the best, 
or argued as the most expedient." — P. xxxiv. 

We should be ashamed to think any reader could fail to 
be convinced, by these observations, that an enlightened 
and upright man, — who in the month of December judges it 
a most flagrant treason against a free constitution, or rather 
an abnegation of its existence, that a regular traffic of sale 
and exchange should be carried on in seats of parliament, 
and that to an extent, which combined with corrupt influence, 
entirely determines the character and measures of the as- 
sembly, — may receive, during the ensuing January, on being 
suddenly appointed a minister, such new lights on the 
subject, as to be rationally and honestly persuaded, that 
this same traffic is perfectly consistent with integrity, and 
is a pure administration of a constitution which, if all that 
great authorities have said and written about it be not a 
farce, requires every man in the House of Commons be 
freely chosen by the people. "We have alluded to this par- 
ticular point of political conversion, because the passage we 



CHARLES I. AND LORD STRAFFORD. 335 

have quoted stands in connexion with a complacent and 
rather proud reference to Mr. Pitt and his principles. 

The Observations are distributed in five sections ; we will 
enumerate the principal points argued in them as briefly as 
possible, and without the smallest attempt to follow the 
author into any part of the historical research. In the first 
section he animadverts on Fox's proposition, that the execu- 
tion of Charles was a less violent measure than that of Lord 
Strafford ; and maintains a contrary opinion, on the ground 
that the one was only " an abuse or breach of a constitutional 
law," whereas the other was a " total departure from, or 
overturning of, the constitution itself." "Without pretend- 
ing to hold any settled opinion on the degree of justice or 
iniquity in the judicial proceedings against Charles, and 
their fatal conclusion, we think nothing can be more idle 
than thus to pretend to bring, as a bar to those proceedings, 
that very constitution which the monarch had done everything 
m his power, by fraud and by force, to abrogate, so as at 
length to have driven the nation to take up arms in order 
either to recover that constitution, or to obtain the power of 
framing and establishing some other that should better secure 
their rights. Our author is more successful against that 
part of Mr. Fox's observations, which alleges the publicity 
and solemnity of the proceedings against the king, as an ex- 
tenuation of their injustice. If the condemnation of the 
king was unjust in abstract morality, — that is, if he had not 
done anything in itself deserving the punishment of death, 
in what mode or by what tribunal soever awarded, — it could 
then be no palliation of the injustice toward him, that his 
destruction was effected through a public judicial process 
rather than a plot of private assassination. Or if, on the 
other hand, the state of the case was, that, though the king 
did on the ground of abstract justice deserve the punishment 
of death, yet the relative justice of that punishment (that is, 
the justice on the part of the agents of it), depended on the 
political character and qualification of the authority that 
was to pronounce the doom, and if no authority less than a 
real national tribunal was duly qualified, — then no public 
formality and solemnity could extenuate the injustice of a 
court, which pronounced this doom without being thus 
qualified. That the high court, before which Charles was 
arraigned, was not really a national tribunal, is asserted by 



336 

Mr. Fox, where lie says, that those judges, though some of 
them were great and respectable men, were collectively to 
be considered as in this instance the ministers of the usurper. 
But Mr. Eose's reasonings are not perplexed with much of 
this casuistry. He rests his condemnation of the proceed- 
ings against the king, neither on the king's innocence, nor 
on the circumstance that the court which tried him was to 
be regarded as rather an instrument of Cromwell, than an 
assembly truly representing the nation in this instance, and 
acting as the organ of its authority and will. He describes 
some mysterious jus divinum in the ghost of the departed 
constitution ; that constitution, which, if it had not been 
previously destroyed by the king, must necessarily have 
perished between the meeting points of the royal and popu- 
lar arms. It was because this deceased constitution had 
not furnished forms and precedents for the arraignment of 
kings, that the appointed court had no authority, to proceed 
against the fallen despot, who had strenuously endeavoured 
the annihilation of liberty. 

The correctness of Fox's estimate of General Monk is 
next discussed, and we have a large quantity of negative 
testimony and pleading in his defence. It would seem 
that his advocate regards him as having failed but by a trifle 
of being 

"That faultless monster which the world ne'er saw ;'* 

but he adopts a language strangely parsimonious of eulogy, 
when it is considered that the subject of it was the betrayer 
and seller of his country. "The character of Monk," he 
says, "does not appear to be so perfect as to justify 
unqualified praise being bestowed upon his memory: but," 
&c. Now it is certainly possible to conceive crimes which 
Monk did not commit ; he probably did not stab his father, 
shoot his mother, or poison his wife. And Mr. Rose has 
taken immense pains to invalidate the assertion, repeated 
by Mr. Fox from Burnet, that Monk, " in the trial of the 
Marquis of Argyle, produced letters of friendship and 
confidence to take away the life of a nobleman, the zeal and 
cordiality of whose co-operation with him, proved by such 
documents, was the chief ground of his execution." So far 
as the silence of a great number of records and other con- 
temporary writings relating or alluding to that trial, can 



STATE OF THE LAWS ITNDER CHAKLES II. 337 

disprove the charge, our author has shown it to be disproved ; 
and he has certainly made out some strong cases against 
Burnet's general accuracy as a historian. Admit then that 
Monk did not destroy his father, mother, wife, or friend, 
and that it is possible to reckon up some twenty other 
crimes he did not commit ; but he laid his couutry defence- 
less at the feet of one of the most notoriously depraved 
creatures that ever trampled on it or any other ; and this we 
must continue to think quite enough to keep him in his 
conspicuous place on the list of infamy, — not with Mr. 
Rose's consent, however, for there is not wanting in these 
pages a round quantity of arguments in justification of his 
preventing any conditions, in precaution against despotism, 
being imposed on the monarch at his restoration. Of these 
arguments, the following is the most ingenious : " The resto- 
ration of the monarchy of England, might, in his opinion, 
have implied all the limitations of its ancient constitution." 

In correction of Eox's observation, that the reign of 
Charles II. was the most distinguished era of good laws, 
though of bad government, and of the opinion adopted from 
Blackstone, that the year 1679 may be fixed on as the 
period at which our constitution had arrived at its greatest 
theoretical perfection, our author has exhibited great know- 
ledge in showing that, of the alleged good laws, some were 
in effect bad, and others not first enacted in his reign ; and 
that, of the bad ones mentioned to have been abrogated, 
some were no more than a dead letter, and others were 
commuted for what was only not quite so oppressive. He 
has shown that some of the laws most important to liberty 
were passed at a later period, and that the reign of "William 
ought rather to be regarded as the consummation of the 
laws and constitution. 

There are but few points contested with Mr. Fox in the 
second section, which chiefly relates to that infamous clan- 
destine commerce in which Charles II. and some of his 
courtiers sacrificed the interests of England and its allies to 
Louis XIV., for sums of money to support their profligacy. 
It is shown that Eox is mistaken in supposing that Charles 
carefully concealed his base connexion with France from his 
ministers, and in believing Lord Clarendon quite innocent 
of any concern in it. It is proved from Clarendon's own 

z 



338 EOSE on fox's history. 

state papers, that, soon after the restoration, this nobleman, 
whose integrity has been so often vaunted, degraded himself 
so far as to be the confidential manager of this vile con- 
nexion. It was a worthy employment for a man who, in 
negotiating that restoration could act in conjunction with 
such a person as Monk ; and deprecate any conditions in 
the nature of precaution against the probable wickedness 
and despotism of a prince whom he knew from his own 
painful experience to be one of the most worthless profli- 
gates on earth. — A curious article in this section is the 
abstract of a secret treaty entered into by Louis and Charles 
in 1670, by one stipulation of which Charles engages to 
make a public declaration of his adherence to the Church of 
Rome, and Louis promises to supply him with money and 
troops in the event of this measure exciting any dangerous 
disturbance in the nation. In reprobating the king's money 
transactions with Prance, our author gets quite into the 
strain of a virtuous patriot. 

The third section is a long, laborious, and able discussion 
of the question, whether the establishment of Popery or of 
despotism was the leading purpose of the designs and 
measures of James II. Mr. Pox asserted and argued the 
latter; a vast accumulation of strong testimony is here 
brought to prove the former. To collect the evidence, our 
author reviews James's proceedings in each of the three 
kingdoms, adduces a multitude of instances of the eagerness 
and pertinacity of his intentions in favour of the Catholics, 
in some of which instances he put his throne in hazard, and 
confirms his inference by various strong passages in the 
correspondence of Louis and Barillon. He also remarks, 
what Mr. Pox has in one place nearly admitted, that James 
had no need of schemes and expedients for the establishment 
of his despotism, for that in this point he met with no 
opposition; the rigours practised in England, and the 
infernal massacre and laws of massacre in Scotland (the 
atrocity of which Mr. Eose says Pox has "under-stated"), 
having caused no material interruption or disturbance on 
the loyal infatuation and base servility of his subjects. 

Pox's opinion was, that the money supplied by Prance to 
Charles and James was for the purpose of enabling them to 
govern without parliaments. The fourth section of these 



subsidies or LOUIS XIT. 339 

Observations is occupied in showing this to be a mistake, 
and explaining to what use the money was meant to be 
applied, and actually was applied. A short extract or two 
will give the result of the disquisition. 

" There are unquestionably abundant proofs of Charles agree- 
ing either to put an end to the sitting of Parliament ; to avoid 
summoning them ; or to obtain support in them for French 
objects, under engagements with Louis, from time to time, as he 
wished to obtain money from him : but there is not the least 
probability that either one or the other entertained an opinion 
that the meeting of Parliament could be entirely dispensed with. 
The extract of a letter from Louis to Barillon, last referred to, 
on the subject of the Catholic religion, affords a tolerably clear 
illustration that Louis had no such intention. The engagements 
appear to have been entered into by Charles, that he might have 
occasional supplies of money, that were not to be accounted for 
in any way ; and by Louis, that he might derive all the assist- 
ance that could be useful to him, from Charles or his brother, 
for the attainment of his objects, without the latter being 
restrained by their Parliaments : and we have seen that, in one 
instance, Charles, in the end of his reign, was enabled to hold 
out for nearly four years." — P. 128. 

" From the light thrown upon it by this correspondence (that 
of the French ambassadors with their king) and adverting to 
the amount of the supplies granted by the British Parliament, 
the most probable conjecture by far seems to be, that the aids 
solicited by Charles and his brother, and given by Louis, were 
with the intention of keeping Parliaments in check, rather than 
for the purpose of enabling the English monarchs, as Mr. Fox 
supposed, to govern without them. Louis certainly obtained 
objects of great importance to himself by his bounty. The war 
between England and Holland ; the breach of the treaty between 
England and Spain, by which Louis got the remainder of the 
Spanish Netherlands ; and the alienation of James from the 
Prince of Orange, who was the greatest obstacle to the ambitious 
views of Louis, were among the fruits of the corrupt transac- 
tions."— P. 139. 

The conclusion of the section is particularly interesting, 
as relating to the implication of even Eussell and Sydney in 
the charge of maintaining a secret, and in the case of Sydney, 
a pecuniary commerce, with the court of France. Barillon 
stated to his master " that he had given two bribes of £500 
each to Sydney ; and that with Lord Russell he had been in 

2 z 



340 EOSE on fox's history. 

a clandestine intercourse." Mr. Fox having expressed 
himself in the strongest possible terms as to the value of 
Barillon's letters, as evidence of the transactions of those 
times, Mr. Eose could not fail to hit on the wicked remark, 
that if the Frenchman's evidence is to be taken as valid 
against the king, it ought to be taken as valid also against 
the patriots. But he is anxious to exculpate these great 
and excellent men, and insists that, even if we should admit 
the veracity of Barillon, it is due to the very high characters 
of these two men to believe that they could not, in this 
intercourse, have any object dishonourable to themselves, or 
injurious to the nation. But he next suggests considera- 
tions, which make it, he thinks, not unreasonable to doubt 
the truth of Barillon's statement. 

" In judging on a point of high importance to his (Sydney's) 
reputation, it will not, we hope, be thought illiberal, or bearing 
too hard on the memory of a foreigner of considerable note, if 
we have in our contemplation, on one hand, the high character 
of our countryman for inflexible integrity, and the improbability 
of his doing anything unworthy of that for two sums compara- 
tively so paltry ; and, on the other hand, that Barillon was 
entrusted by his sovereign with very large sums of money ; the 
distribution of which he was of course to give some account of, 
but for which no vouchers could be required of him : and if it 
shall be thought allowable to entertain a doubt of the accuracy 
of the accounts of the ambassador, we may then venture to sug- 
gest that he had a two-fold inducement to place those sums to 
the name of Mr. Sydney, as furnishing a discharge for the amount 
stated to be given, and affording means of obtaining credit with 
his employer, for having been able to prevail with such a man 
to receive foreign money for any purpose." — P. 152. 

To countenance this surmise, our author cites several 
passages from Madame de Sevigne's Letters, intimating that 
Barillon was becoming rich by means of his residence in 
England. We presume every reader, who blends patriotism 
with his admiration of eminent virtue, will gladly entertain 
Mr. Hose's explanation. 

The fifth section expatiates, to a great extent, on the 
character of Sir Patrick Hume, the expedition and character 
of the Earl of Argyle, and the conduct and fate of the Duke 
of Monmouth ; intermixing a great many relative and inci- 
dental matters of history and opinion, and including a most 



SIR PATRICK HUME AND ARGYLE. 341 

profitable book-making quantity of quotation from M. d'Avaux. 
As to Sir Patrick Hume, there can be little doubt that be was 
a man of ability and virtue, and a zealous friend of liberty. 
But tbis is not enough for Mr. Rose ; who cannot allow it 
possible that the ancestor of his intimate friend Lord 
Marchmont, could ever have been betrayed, amidst the most 
perplexing and harassing circumstances, into the slightest 
error either of judgment or temper. Sir Patrick Hume, 
therefore, is justified and applauded in every point, and in 
every point at the expense of Argyle — a fine specimen of 
impartiality and good sense in an author who takes every 
occasion of lecturing the departed historian on that bias of 
his judgment, which, as this commentator says, perverted 
his estimates of character. "We admire too, the judicial 
equity or sagacity of admitting Sir Patrick's own statement, 
as conclusive evidence of this invariable wisdom and recti- 
tude ; just as if it were impossible that Argyle could have 
drawn up an account, which should, with apparent probabi- 
lity, have made all the blame rest on Sir Patrick and his 
adherents. 

Mr. Fox happened to suggest, and in a very few sentences 
closed, a parallel between Argyle and Montrose. This was 
like abandoning, and too soon closing up a mine, in which 
another adventurer is sure there must be a great deal of 
remaining treasure. Our author has opened it again, and 
dug out, and brought to light, for the pure sake of novelty, 
Hume's well-known elogium at the conclusion of the account 
of his conduct at his execution. Several other substances 
are got out, which several historians seem to have secreted 
there for the purpose of giving them the eclat of this repro- 
duction. 

The expression, " unfortunate Argyle !" attributed to the 
Earl, at the moment of his being taken, and as the cause of 
his being recognised, was thought by Pox to be recorded on 
no good authority. Mr. Rose admits it as authentic, on the 
testimony of the London Gazette of that time, and of a 
paper, printed at Edinburgh, in his possession. 

The words in the warrant for Argyle' s execution, " That 
you take all ways to know from him those things which 
concern our government most," were interpreted by Eox 
to direct the use of torture ; a meaning which, (though not 



342 EOSE ON EOX'S HISTORY. 

improbable, as being most perfectly in character for that 
execrable authority from which the warrant came,) is 
scarcely admitted by Mr. Rose, because torture was not 
actually applied. He states, however, that this expedient 
of justice was in common use in Scotland in those times, 
though never permitted by the laws in England. The 
English crown, however, was determined to come in some 
way or other for a share of the honour ; and among other 
curious particulars, our commentator has given at length 
a warrant by which King William III. commanded the 
application of torture in the case of a criminal tried in 
Scotland, which humane mandate was obeyed with a 
zealous loyalty. 

By a reference to many documents our author has brought 
much in doubt two incidents related concerning Argyle — the 
one by Burnet, the other by "Woodrow. The first is that of 
his cautioning Mr. Charteris not to make any attempt to 
convince him of the criminality of his hostile expedition 
(a circumstance, however, which carries in itself the strongest 
probability) ; the other is that of the anguish said to have 
been expressed by a member of the Council that pronounced 
his condemnation, on seeing him calmly sleeping but two 
hours before the time appointed for his execution. There 
is some high political orthodoxy in our author's reasoning 
in behalf of this supposed councillor, that he could not feel, 
and ought not to feel, any remorse for the condemnation of 
Argyle, who, though no doubt a very amiable and estimable 
man, " was taken in open rebellion against his lawful 
sovereign;" which expression means, we suppose, that if 
this sovereign had chosen to cause the assassination of all 
the people in Scotland but one, that one would nevertheless 
have remained religiously bound in all the obligations of 
allegiance. It is true, as this writer alleges, that his 
"sovereign" had not, at the time of Argyle's invasion, 
unfolded the whole atrocity of his murderous disposition; 
but he had in his first communication to the Scottish par- 
liament graciously promised (and, if our memory does 
not deceive us, Mr. Rose himself somewhere says it was the 
only promise he faithfully kept), that he would carry on the 
same horrible course of assassination which was perpetrating 
at the time of his predecessor's death. His conduct in 



ON THEATEICAL AMUSEMENTS. 343 

Scotland, while Duke of York, had given a fair pledge that 
he was capable of fulfilling his engagements of this kind. 

We have no room left for remarks on the various parti- 
culars collected concerning the Duke of Monmouth. In 
this part there seems no very important contrariety between 
Mr. Eose and the great author on whom he is animadverting. 
Near the close of these Observations there is a reflection or 
two on royal prerogatives, constitutional equipoises, and the 
danger of carrying the doctrines of freedom to excess, to 
which we might be tempted to give the denomination of 
cant, — but for the pleasing impression which we uniformly 
feel, in common with our countrymen, of our author's extra- 
ordinary and inveterate political disinterestedness. 

We do not pretend that we are not a good deal pleased 
with Sir Patrick Hume's Narrative, or that we do not think 
it proves some faults in Argyle : when, however, we see a 
man like the Earl represented as wayward and humoursome, 
and " petting" at the conduct of his associates, we are fully 
reminded that we are reading only one .side of the story. 
As to various points of military detail, in which he is 
charged with error, we think it almost impossible to decide 
now on what involved so many local and temporary circum- 
stances. 

The Appendix contains several interesting articles, es- 
pecially an account of Sir Patrick Hume's concealment in 
Scotland, previously to his first escape to the Continent ; a 
much clearer proof than we are gratified to see, that Burnet, 
as a historian, is to be trusted with great caution ; and an 
account of the last days and the death of the Duke of 
Monmouth, published speedily after by authority. 



ON THEATEICAL AMUSEMENTS. 

Four Discourses on Subjects relating to the Amusement of the Stage. 
Preached at Great St, Mary's Church, Cambridge, on Sunday, 
September 25, and Sunday, October 2, 1808 ; with copious 
Supplementary Notes, By James Plumtre, B.D., Fellow 
of Clare Hall. 8vo. 1809. 

It is not expressed in the title-page, that these discourses 
were preached, and are published, with an intention hostile 



344 ON THEATKICAL AMUSEMENTS. 

to the stage ; but the reader can have no doubt as to this 
point, we presume, when informed that they are dedicated 
to the Yice- Chancellor of the University of Cambridge after 
having received his approbation, that the author is an ad- 
mirer of some of our most serious and orthodox divines, that 
he appears to be actuated by a sincere wish to do good, and 
that the discourses are founded on no other than the follow- 
ing texts : " Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatso- 
ever ye do, do all to the glory of God." — "Be not deceived, 
evil communications corrupt good manners." — " Let not 
foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, be 
once named among you, as becometh saints." — " To him 
that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." 
A selection of texts so pointedly applicable, will appear to 
indicate the preacher's correct view of his subject ; and shall 
we not incur the suspicion of wantonly offending against 
the third injunction, when we state, that notwithstanding 
all these reasons for a contrary presumption, Mr. Plumtre's 
discourses are meant as a formal defence of the stage ? 

Merely that a minister of the Christian religion should 
have considered it as within the scope and duty of his sacred 
function to undertake such a defence, will not be a fact of 
sufficient novelty, in our times, to excite surprise ; for it 
would be ungrateful to charge it on defect of reverend in- 
struction, if we do not know that the play-house is one of 
our best Christian institutions. But there is something 
strikingly new in hearing a vindication of the stage from a 
clergyman, who connects it with a serious admonition that 
life should be employed in a preparation for eternity, with a 
zealous inculcation of the apostolic rule of doing all things 
to the glory of God, with an admission that the general 
quality of polite literature is decidedly adverse to Christian 
principles, and with an extended and very instructive illus- 
tration of the prevalence of this adverse spirit in even the 
least exceptionable part of the English drama. If the 
reader's impression of the incompatibility of what we have 
here reported to him as combined, should lead him to sus- 
pect affectation in the religious parts of the compound, we 
must assure him there are the strongest marks of sincerity. 
This being believed, his surmises towards an explanation of 
such a phenomenon will probably terminate in a conjecture, 



ME. PLUMTHE's PASSION" FOE THE DEAMA. 345 

that in the preacher's youth, the drama must have inspired a 
passion so deep as to become like one of the original principles 
of his mind, which therefore the judgment could never eradi- 
cate, nor ever inspect without an involuntary bias operating 
like a spell. And this is the explanation furnished by the 
preacher's long dedication, in which he adverts to the lead- 
ing circumstances of his life, by way of accounting for his 
writing a book on such a subject, and with such a design. 

In course of time he entered, at college, on the studies 
preparatory to the clerical profession, and obtained a paro- 
chial charge, in which his professional duties and studies 
began entirely to engross his thoughts, "and yielding," he 
says, "to the prejudices of the world, I determined to relin- 
quish in a great measure the amusement of the stage." He 
sold a large dramatic library in order to purchase better 
books, among which were Mrs. More's works, including her 
dialogue on amusements, and her most excellent preface to 
her tragedies ; these tracts had a great influence on his mind, 
and for some years he wholly abstained from the amusement 
of the theatre. "The circumstances of his parish" suggested 
to him the possible utility of modifying to a moral purpose 
the most popular convivial songs, of which he has subse- 
quently printed several volumes, with the required expurga- 
tions and additions,under the title "Yocal Repository." This 
occupation revived his attention to the drama, which he had 
never been persuaded entirely to condemn, though his 
opinion of it was somewhat altered. In an interval of pro- 
fessional employment, he meditated a set of lectures, to be 
delivered at the University, partly with a view to the re- 
formation of the stage. This design was not executed ; but 
an opportune occasion was offered for putting some of the 
collected materials into the form of sermons, to which, when 
printed, another portion could be appended as notes. The 
inducement to adopt the form of sermons was, the hope that 
they might, as public addresses, be of service to other clergy- 
men, situated in the neighbourhood of the various theatres 
in this country. 

Toward the close of this dedicatory introduction, which 
we have regarded it as a point of justice to notice thus par- 
ticularly, the author distinctly meets, what he necessarily 
anticipated, the censure which will be apt to fall on a clergy- 



346 ON THEATRICAL AMUSEMENTS. 

man for composing a volume on such a subject. His apology 
is, that this is the only way in which he may hope to redeem, 
in some sense, the time which he regrets he has wasted in 
former dramatic studies. He esteems his knowledge of the sub- 
ject as very dearly purchased ; but actually having this know- 
ledge, he thinks it his duty to put it to the use of displaying 
the moral character of the English drama, of attempting its 
reformation, and we may add, of correcting the opinions of 
those austere Christians, who insist on the entire destruction 
of what he thinks capable of being made a "powerful 
engine to promote the cause of virtue." 

The first discourse proposes to argue the question, 
" "Whether the stage be a thing lawful in itself;" but we are 
not quite satisfied that this question takes the subject in the 
right point of view. What is meant by the stage "in itself," 
or abstractedly considered ? If by the stage, described under 
these terms of limitation, the written drama were meant, no 
question could be more easily decided, than whether it be 
lawful to write and to read useful and ingenious things in 
a dramatic form ; no question, therefore, could be more 
needless, and we do not see why several pages of the work 
should have been occupied in answering it. Bat under- 
standing by the stage literally the theatre and its per- 
formances, we do not exactly comprehend what is meant by 
the question whether it be lawful " in itself." The estimate 
of the good or evil of the theatre must necessarily be 
founded on the combined consideration of a number of 
particulars ; as the qualities of human nature in general, 
together with their modifications in any one age or nation, 
— the effect on the human mind of exhausting its passions 
on fictitious objects, the character of that part of society 
that will at all times be most addicted to amusements, and 
will chiefly support them, — the natural attendants and con- 
sequences of a passion for splendid amusements, — the 
tendency and the attendant circumstances of immense noc- 
turnal assemblages of people in great towns, — the quality of 
the works of the great national dramatic writers, that 
must necessarily form the main stock of the theatre (till 
writers shall be put in requisition to dramatize and versify 
the Homilies and the Whole Duty of Man), — the probable 
moral character of a set of men and women employed under 



LAWFULNESS OF THE STAGE. 347 

the circumstances inseparable from a company of players,-— 
and the vast expense, original and permanent, of the whole 
theatrical establishment. All these and other particulars 
are involved in the question of the lawfulness of the stage ; 
and therefore we think any attempt to discuss that lawfulness 
in the abstract, or " in itself," would too much resemble a 
discussion of the lawfulness of war abstractedly from all 
consideration of national enmity, of battle, wounds, and 
slaughter, of the barbarizing effect on its agents, of the 
misery of the countries where it prevails, and of national 
expense and ruin. We do not say that these two things are 
perfectly parallel ; but we mean that the moral estimate of 
the stage must be formed on a view of all those circum- 
stances, which are naturally relative to it, which are essential 
to its existence, or with which in point of fact it has 
invariably been connected. 

Admitting most fully (as every person must, who pos- 
sesses ordinary moral and religious perceptions), the gross 
depravity of the theatre in the collective character of its 
constituents, the plays, the players, and a large portion of 
the spectators, and deploring its widely pernicious influence, 
our preacher yet endeavours, by distinguishing between the 
use and abuse of a thing, to defend the theatre " in itself" 
against those, who, from all they have seen and can antici- 
pate, pronounce it radically and essentially a mischief. He 
has told us, from Ecclesiasticus, that " as a nail sticketh 
fast between the stones, so doth sin stick close between 
buying and selling," that "strong drinks and wine" have 
been abused by intemperance, and that even the public 
worship of God has been perverted to wickedness ; and 
maintains unanswerably, that we are not therefore to 
prohibit buying and selling, and the use of wine, and the 
worship of God. This argument from analogy ought, at its 
weakest point, to prove that the divine providence has, in 
the order of nature, made a specific direct provision for a 
play-house ; and as its strongest point, to prove that the 
pernicious effects of the play-house should be calmly left to 
the government of God-, as an evil become incidental through 
human depravity to one of his own appointments, which we 
are not the less bound in duty to observe because it is liable 
to such a perversion. It should also prove, that the ces- 



348 ON THEATEICAL AMTJSEMENTS. 

sation of acting plays would inflict an evil tantamount to 
breaking up the regular business and intercourse of society. 

But not to dwell on such an unfortunate argument, we 
will say a word or two on the propriety of giving the deno- 
mination of abuses to the evils uniformly attending the 
stage. When we speak of the abuses of a thing, we cannot 
mean less than that the thing in question is at least fitted 
to do greatly more good than harm, even in the present 
state of the human mind and of society ; we understand of 
it that good is its natural general effect, and evil the inci- 
dental, man being as he is. "We repeat this conditional 
point ; for, if the thing in question be not calculated mainly 
to do good till human society shall have grown incomparably 
more virtuous, and thus attained a state capable of neutral- 
izing its operation, or even converting it into something 
beneficial, it is plainly, for any present use, absolutely bad, 
necessarily bad, in its regular operation; and to call this 
operation an abuse, is a disengenuous and deceptive language. 
Now our preacher, while reprobating the obvious mischiefs 
of the stage under the denomination of " abuses," insists 
that it is notwithstanding adapted, and may by a very prac- 
ticable reform be brought to be of the greatest moral utility 
in the present condition of society. It would be going 
very much beyond the limits of our office to enumerate the 
principal arguments (indeed they are amply quoted by Mr. 
Plumptre) advanced by serious and intelligent men in 
opposition to his opinion. The best works on the subjects 
are very well known, and we think the chief good that will 
be effected by the book before us will be, to induce some 
of its readers to examine them with more attention. The 
most material points of the argument were hinted above, 
in one of the preceding sentences ; and in slightly advert- 
ing to several of them we shall employ but very few more. 

It must be quite obvious for what purpose it is that 
society chooses to have a theatre, and by what part of 
society it must be principally supported. And Mr. 
Plumtre knows it would be disingenuous trifling to pretend, 
that the theatre is raised and supported, with any other 
view on the part of the public, than that of amusement. A 
very few individuals may occasionally, or even habitually, 
attend it for the purpose of philosophical observation ; but 



WHAT CLASSES EBEQT7ENT THE THEATBE. 349 

even if these were sincerely anxious to apply the knowledge 
of human nature there acquired to the service of virtue and 
religion, which is rarely the case, the circumstance would be 
inexpressibly too trivial to be mentioned against the noto- 
rious fact, that the part of the community that require and 
frequent a theatre, do it for no purpose even the most 
distantly related to moral improvement. This would be 
testified, if it needed any testimony, by every one who has 
listened to the afternoon conversation of a party arranging 
and preparing to go to the play, and to the retrospective 
discussion of this party during the eleven-o'clock break- 
fast on the following morning; or by any one who has 
listened to the remarks made around him in any part of the 
boxes, pit, or galleries. The persons, who are intent on 
moral or intellectual improvement, will be found occupied 
in a very different manner, inspecting the works of the 
great historians, philosophers, moralists, or divines ; or hold- 
ing rational conversations with their families, or friends ; or 
even (if they judge instruction really is to be obtained from 
that source) reading the most celebrated dramatic works in 
theirown or another language, and with a far more judicious 
and scrutinizing attention than any one exerts amidst the 
thousand interfering and beguiling circumstances of the 
theatre. Now if amusement is the grand object sought at 
the play-house, the object on copiously ministering to which 
its existence wholly depends, it must to preserve that 
existence, adapt itself completely to the taste of that part 
of society that is devoted to amusement, and will pay its 
price, in time, health, and money. And what sort of 
persons are they that compose this part of society ? It 
really might have been accounted superfluous to say that 
they are necessarily the trifling and the immoral. They are 
such of the wealthy as have neither occupation nor benevo- 
lence ; the devotees of -fashion ; the most thoughtless part of 
the young, together with what are called young men of 
spirit, who want a little brisk folly as an interlude to their 
more vicious pursuits; loungers of all sorts; tradesmen who 
neglect their business ; persons who, in domestic relations, 
have no notion of cultivating the highest social and 
intellectual interests; and old debauchees, together with 
the wretched class of beings, whose numbers, vices, and 



350 ON THEATRICAL AMUSEMENTS. 

miseries, they can still be proud to augment. It is by the 
part of the community composed of these classes that the 
theatre is mainly supported; and these it must gratify, or it 
will perish. And if it must gratify this part of the com- 
munity, of what moral quality must its exhibitions be ? Is 
it possible to maintain, with a grave face, that those 
exhibitions can be lessons of pure morality, and even piety, 
— according to our author's injunction and professed hope 
that "the stage shall go hand in hand with the pulpit?" 
The stage will have a beneficial influence, he says, when the 
writers, actors, and frequenters compose, and act, and attend 
plays, "with a view to the glory of Grod," (a most original 
association of ideas) — and when they preserve amidst these 
occupations a deep concern for the " salvation of their 
souls." Now, can he believe that there are twenty fre- 
quenters of the play-house in all England, who could hear 
such a state of mind insisted on as necessary even in the 
common course of life, without sneering at such notions as 
rank Methodism ; or who would fail to mutter a charge of 
stark madness, if seriously told it was a necessary state of 
mind in attending the theatre ? Is it not fully settled in 
the minds of all classes of its frequenters, that it is a place 
of perfect immunity from grave thought and converse with 
conscience, and from all puritanism, cant, sermonizing, 
saintship, godliness, sober representations of life and duty, 
and squeamish modesty, — excepting so far as some or all of 
these may be introduced for ridicule, in which mode of 
introduction, indeed, they are probably greater favourites 
with an English theatrical audience than all other subjects ? 
In short, are not the entertainments of the theatre resorted 
to and delighted in as something confessedly, avowedly, and 
systematically opposite, to what is understood by its fre- 
quenters to have formed the chief concern, the prominent 
and unpopular distinction, of the most devout and holy 
men, of dying penitents, of Christian apostles, of all the 
persons most deeply solicitous for the "glory of Grod," and 
the " salvation of their souls ?" Mr. Plumptre will fully 
agree with us, for he has himself very forcibly shown, that, 
with certain fluctuations, and some degree of modern 
amendment, in the article of decorum, this has always been 
the character of the stage, and is the character of the great 



IMMORALITY OP THE DBAMA. 351 

body of our written drama. And why has this been 
uniformly the character ? Are we to believe that the 
writers and actors, with an unparalleled contempt of self- 
interest, have been for several hundred years forcing on 
their grand and sole patron, the public, a species of dramatic 
exhibitions disapproved by that patron ? On the contrary, 
these writers and players have always been to the full as 
sagacious with respect to their own interest, as any other 
class of persons who are to prosper or famish according to 
the acceptance or disapproval of what they furnish to the 
public market ; and quite as obsequious in accommodating 
to the public taste. In a few instances, indeed, it may have 
been attempted to make the stage a pure Christian moralist, 
and a sort of half- Christian divine ; and the attempt has 
failed. It deserved to fail ; for, if a manufacturer in any 
department absolutely will make his goods of a quality and 
form quite different from what he knows the public have 
uniformly required in that sort of article, nobody com- 
passionates him for the consequences. And we would ask 
Mr. Plumptre, where is the reasonableness and humanity of 
requiring the writers and actors of plays to commit a pro- 
fessional suicide by provoking the disgust and indignation 
of their supporters ? The present time shows what an 
imperious aspect the public, that is, the play-going public, 
can assume when they are not pleased ; and if, instead of 
the trifling alteration of a little advance in price, there were 
to be introduced a moral change to one half the extent 
demanded by our preacher, a change which would instantly 
give the denomination of " Methodist Theatre," can any 
one believe this genteel and vulgar rabble would not bellow 
to a still nobler tune if possible, and fairly baffle at last the 
utmost rhetoric of the journalists in attempting, even with 
the aid of the Miltonic diction, to describe the "confusion" 
still "worse confounded?" Parson Kemble, or Saint 
Cooke, after having once appeared, seriously, in the Gospel 
Scene, would prefer taking the second turn in the pillory at 
Charing Cross. 

In thus predicting the treatment awaiting the stage when 
turned Methodist, we have not misrepresented our preacher 
as to the extent of the conversion which he demands. He 
insists, with respect to the drama, as it ought to be insisted 



352 ON THEATRICAL AMUSEMENTS. 

with respect to every institution which is to be retained in 
society, that its entire spirit and tendency must be made 
strictly coincident with the Christian religion; and he 
perfectly agrees with Mrs. More and several other writers, 
that, besides all the more gross and tangible immorality 
adhering to our drama, there is a decidedly anti-Christian 
quality prevailing through almost its whole mass, so that 
even most of its greatest beauties please with a noxious 
lustre. Consistently, therefore, he requires the stage to be 
purified from its many modes of heathenism, from its 
erroneous conceptions of divine justice and the atonement 
of guilt, from its profane language, from its pernicious 
notions of honour, from its encouragement and extenuations 
of suicide and duelling, from its extravagant and often 
corrupt representations of love, and from its indecorum. 
And all these things, we are to believe, may be swept away 
in the very face of the persons who are paying expressly for 
their continuance ; and by whom the pure Christian con- 
traries of all these things will be received with abhorrence, 
unless, while the transmutation is taking place on the stage, 
a sudden conversion also visits the minds of the audience, 
as when Peter was preaching. But no, says our author, the 
change is to be gradual ; something is already effected, and 
"we must go on to perfection." It is true that a very 
slight, superficial amendment has taken place, in avoiding 
the excessive, undisguised grossness which prevailed on the 
stage in a former century ; and this is because the age is 
grown more delicate, not, probably, because the audience 
are much more moral ; for, does Mr. Plumptre really believe 
that the theatre now contains a less proportion of profligate 
men and women than in former times ? But, taking this 
slight, superinduced refinement at whatever he can seriously 
think it worth, we have his own testimony that the per- 
vading heathenism and profaneness, the detestable moral 
principles and the romantic extravagance, remain nearly 
undiminished ; and we would therefore ask him how many 
ages, at this rate of improvement, we are to be waiting for 
the stage to attain even the point of neutrality between 
good and evil of moral and religious influence. And should 
not the melancholy thought of so many tens of thousands, 
whose principles, with respect to the most important 



PEOPOSED EEEOEH OE THE STAGE. 353 

subjects and concerns, are to be acted upon by a powerfully- 
pernicious influence in the course of this long period, have 
impelled him to exhort his auditors and readers to an instant 
witkdrawnient of all countenance and support from one of 
the worst enemies of human virtue and happiness ? Instead 
of which, we lament to find a minister of the Christian 
religion advising the respectable inhabitants of places where 
plays are acted to attend them, in order to influence the 
selection of the pieces and the manners of the company. 

Against those who assert the radical evil of the stage, and 
instead of devising remedies, urge the duty of entirely 
relinquishing it, he raises a strange, and what he seems to 
think conclusive argument, from the simple fact that the 
stage is still in existence : as if he would say, It must be a 
good thing, or capable of being made so, and claims that we 
should all join hand and heart to support and improve it, 
because — all efforts to put it down have been unavailing. 

It may be hardly worth while to notice, that there seems 
here an admission that the people are not good enough to 
reform, any more than they are to give up, a corrupt stage ; 
or to observe, that it is unfair to complicate the question, 
whether individuals ought to abandon the theatre, with the 
question whether the state ought to suppress it. But as to 
the fact which he makes into an argument, namely, that the 
stage still exists, we may properly say to Mr. Plumptre, 
"What is that to you, or to us ? There exist also dens of 
gamblers, and gangs of thieves, and brothels, and clubs for 
gluttony, drunkenness, and ribaldry ; but you or we are not 
therefore called upon to study the letter regulation of these 
associations, and sometimes to go among them as a " check 
on their improprieties." The complaint that the adversaries 
of the stage have not employed "conciliating" measures is 
passing strange as coming from a Christian divine, who tells 
us that one of those adversaries (Bedford), has cited in his 
book "nearly seven thousand instances of impiety and 
immorality from the plays in use at that time, and some of 
which (though in rather an amended state), still keep a 
place upon the stage." (P. 36.) If such a hideous monster 
was a thing capable of being "vilified," or deserving to be 
"conciliated," what is it on this side the infernal pit that 
we can lawfully make relentless war upon ? 

A A 



354 ON THEATRICAL AMUSEMENTS. 

Our argument above has been, that it is impossible for 
the stage to become good, in any such Christian sense as 
Mr. Plumptre requires ; because its character must be faith- 
fully congenial with that of its supporters, and they chiefly 
consist of the more trifling, irreligious, and immoral part of 
the community. But perhaps our author thinks that if the 
stage, by a resolute effort of its directors, were quite to 
change its character, and become the mirror of Christian 
sentiments and morals, it might obtain a better class of 
supporters, and thus afford to lose the frivolous and the dis- 
solute. And if this were possible, is it desirable ? We are 
not convinced it would be any great advantage gained to the 
happiness of society, if we were to see the great temple of 
wisdom and virtue in Covent Garden lined with an auditory 
of right reverend bishops, zealous ministers, and the 
worthiest part of their flocks, dressed in sober faces and 
decent apparel, rank above rank, up to the region of what 
used to be called "the gods;" if we were to see the pit 
occupied by a battalion of quakers ; if worthy, domestic men, 
who have been accustomed to pass their evenings in reading 
with their wives and sisters, after half an hour's sport with 
their children, were to commence the practice of either 
sliding off alone, or taking their families along with them, 
to the new rendezvous of saints and philosophers ; or if 
virtuous young men, qualifying by diligent study for 
important professions, and young women qualifying for 
their wives, were seen flocking to the dramatic oracle to 
inquire how to combine wisdom and love. But if all this 
were ever so much "a consummation devoutly to be 
wished," it would never be attained; and the mansion of 
the christened Apollo might be surrendered to the bats, 
unless he would forswear his newly adopted and unprofitable 
faith, and again invite the profane and profligate. The 
orderly, industrious, studious, benevolent, and devout, would 
never, in any state of the theatre, frequent it in sufficient 
numbers to defray the cost of dresses and wax candles. 
And besides, what becomes during this hopeful experiment 
of that worse part of the community which the stage, 
according to our author, was to have helped the gospel to 
reform ? They are the while wandering away, perverse and 
hapless beings ! from the most precious school ever opened 



BEEORM OP THE STAGE IMPRACTICABLE. 355 

for the corrective discipline of sinners. But the place, 
originally intended to please them, will not long be occupied 
by the usurping morality that would assume to mend them. 
Like the unclean spirit, they will soon re-enter the swept 
and garnished house, and even, like him, bring auxiliary 
companions, the more effectually to assert whose house it is. 
"We will not waste more words. Mr. Plump tre knows that 
no theatre could support itself under the odium of main- 
taining an explicit hostility against not only direct grossness 
and vice, but all anti- Christian principles of morality. It 
is a ruined thing if not only the women of the town, and the 
vile gangs of journeymen and gentlemen blades that fre- 
quent the place to joke with them, purchase them, or insult 
them, but also the more decorous holders of a fashionable 
moral creed, are to be dosed there with Christian mendica- 
ments, and fumigated off with an effluvium a hundred times 
more nauseous to them than the smell of the burning fish 
was to the goblin that haunted Tobias's bride. As long as 
there is a play-house, it will and must be assumed, as their 
legitimate place of resort, by the least serious and the most 
irreligious and profligate class of the nation. "Where else, 
indeed, should they resort? — to the evening lecture at 
church or at the conventicle ? Thus the stage, so far from 
contributing to promote the ascendancy of good over evil in 
society, will be the faithful attendant and ally of the evil, 
at once living on it and ministering to it, just so long as a 
sufficient measure of it shall exist in the shape of vain and 
profligate persons to support the amusement, and perishing 
at length when Christianity shall have left too few of these 
persons for this purpose. Or shall we suppose it will then 
arise and flourish afresh under a renovated, Christianized 
character ? That is to say, shall we suppose, that at such a 
happy period it will be deemed one of the worthiest efforts 
of virtue and religion to raise and furnish edifices at the 
expense of £150,000 a-piece, and maintain in each of them, 
at a cost equal to that of several hospitals, or of some fifty 
or a hundred of Lancaster's schools, an establishment just 
for the purpose of employing a number of persons to sham 
the name and dress of certain fictitious foreigners, or, if you 
please, good home-bred Christians, and recite a course of 
lines from a book which the audience could have quietly 

A a2 



356 



ON THEATEICAL AMUSEMENTS. 



read at home ; and, if they are tragic lines, read, according 
to the opinion of Dr. Johnson, with a deeper impression ? 

This view of the necessary character of the stage forms 
but a narrow section of the argument against it ; and we 
have dwelt on it, not with the design of anything so absurd 
as debating the general subject in an article of a journal, 
but for the particular purpose of exposing Mr. Plumptre's 
doctrine that " the evil attached to the stage is no part of 
its inherent quality, but arises merely from the abuse of it." 
(P. 7.) "With regard to many of the specific evils attendant 
on the theatre, he has himself done ample justice to the 
subject, partly by quoting, with a candour not to be sur- 
passed, and deserving of the highest applause, a number of 
the strongest passages from the adversaries of the stage, 
Collier, Law, Witherspoon, Styles, &c, and partly by an 
indictment drawn up by himself, of which the several counts 
are excellently illustrated and sustained by passages fur- 
nished by his extensive acquaintance with the English 
drama. These illustrations are placed in the mass of notes 
at the end of the book, which form a very entertaining and 
instructive miscellany. One portion of these notes is a 
kind of marshalling of great names against Mr. Styles, 
who had ventured to boast that the most venerable autho- 
rities, the most illustrious moralists and philosophers of all 
ages, have been enemies of the stage ; too rash a boast as it 
should seem ; for Mr. Plumptre has proved that Bishop 
Bundle of most pious celebrity, that Mr. Cumberland, and 
Mr. Dibdin, and a Mrs. Douglas, which last person tells 
"the theologians and philosophers" they have no business 
to say a word about a subject so much above their faculties 
as the merits of the drama, — that these illustrious authorities 
are in favour of the stage. Not, however, that these are 
the only names in array ; for he cites, on the same side, 
opinions or implications variously modified and limited, 
from Addison, Blackmore, Tillotson, Seed, Hanway, Johnson, 
Grilpin, and Grisborne. It is irksome enough to see quoted 
from such a writer as this last, " the stage ought to recom- 
mend itself as the nurse of virtue." In another part of 
the book it is quoted from him, that there is one quarter 
from which the purification of the stage, with respect to 
all offences against modesty, " might be effected at once ; 



PBOEAKE LANGUAGE OF THE STAGE. 357 

to those who act under a royal license, a single hint from 
Boyal Authority would be sufficient." And why then, we 
ask, has not this purification been effected ? "We might 
ask too, whether it is any part of the purification which 
this " hint " is to accomplish, to banish from the stage 
persons whose whole life is an offence against modesty. 

We are ashamed to find a Christian minister vindicating, 
under any circumstances, the impious practice of addressing 
the Deity on the stage. 

" Many, indeed (says Mr. Plumptre), have doubted and denied 
the propriety of addresses to the Deity in representations, because 
they are not realities. But, if a character be introduced as an 
example for our imitation, in such a circumstance, as were he in 
real life, trust in God and prayer to him would be a duty, provided 
it be done with reverence, it does not appear to be a mockery and 
in vain, but a highly useful lesson. Are we not too little accus- 
tomed, too much ashamed to let ourselves be seen, or known to 
be on our knees before God, in real life ? We are commanded, 
indeed, not to pray in public, for the sake of being seen of men ; 
for the motive ought to be to please God ; but we are com- 
manded to let our light so shine before men, that they may see 
our good works, and glorify oue, father who is in heaven.— 
P. 29. 

We must think with Mr. Styles, that "a fictitious cha- 
racter on the stage has nothing to do with heaven." The 
personation of such a character in the act of prayer en- 
deavours to pass itself for some very undefinable species of 
reality, and claims to excite nearly the same feelings that 
reality would do. It is intended, therefore, that the prayer 
in question shall be regarded rather as a real act of piety, 
than as the mere historical reading or reciting, if we may so 
express ourselves, of a prayer supposed to have been uttered 
by the character whom the player personates. This being 
the case, the player does assume to make, and the audience 
are called to witness, an actual address to the Deity, expres- 
sive of sentiments, and relative to a situation, which are 
totally fictitious ; and this we think the vilest impiety. 

As to the benefit arising from seeing examples of mingling 
piety with the concerns of life, the playhouse, with all its 
mass of profaneness and ribaldry, must be a marvellous 
proper place for making the exhibition, and receiving the 
edification. 



358 



CHAEACTEES OF FOX. 

Characters of the late Charles James Fox, selected, and in part 
written, by Philopatris Yarvicbnsis. 8vo. 2 vols. 1809. 

Very few pages of the original part of this work could have 
been read by any one at all acquainted with the style of Dr. 
Parr, without confidently guessing at the real name of 
Philopatris Varvicensis, even if the introduction had not 
avowed that the work is from the same hand as the noted 
preface to Bellendenus. The avowal is made in. a singularly 
inartificial manner, purporting that this author has the per- 
mission of that author to insert a part of that preface, and 
that the authors are one. 

It may be deemed an act of condescension, in one of the 
first scholars in Europe, to take a collection of extracts from 
newsapers, magazines, reviews, funeral sermons, and fugitive 
poetry, for the basis of an ample literary structure, which was 
to display the attributes and decorations of all the orders of 
literary architecture. The proceeding is certainly no incon- 
siderable proof, that an author may be very learned, intimately 
acquainted with his subject, and an enthusiast concerning 
it, without necessarily despising everything that has been 
written on that subject by his contemporaries. The talents 
and acquirements of Philopatris will be the more freely 
applauded by every reader, from their being unaccompanied 
with any signs of the superciliousness, jealousy, and envy 
which have often so seriously deducted from the claims of 
men of learning and wit. 

An impartial execution of the humble office of making 
such selection, whoever had undertaken it, would deserve 
to be acknowledged, we think, as a service to the public. 
Apart from any consideration of the literary qualities, 
good or bad, of the pieces forming this miscellany, it 
compels us to allow it some degree of importance when 
we reflect, that if we could ascertain all the readers of each 
of the pieces, it is a very moderate computation that more 
than a million of persons have read or heard read with real 
interest, and with a decidedly approving or disapproving 
opinion, some of the composition contained within these 



THE MOEALTTT OF POLITICS. 359 

hundred and sixty pages. "We have, therefore, within this 
space a portion of writing, which has engaged an extent and 
a degree of attention which may probably never be excited, 
in the same brief space of time by any set of critical, moral, 
and biographical essays on one'subject, that we shall ever again 
see brought together. It is also reasonable to believe that, 
under the aid of that state of national feeling which was 
produced by the solemnity of the occasion, these pieces may 
have had a greater effect on the popularmindwith regard to its 
views of what may be termed the morality of politics, than 
any other equal quantity of temporary productions. They 
will, besides, when thus collected, and preserved for another 
age, in a richer portion of classical condiment than probably 
any other person than this editor could have furnished, 
remain an amusing and instructive record of the kind of 
political and moral sentiments entertained, at the period when 
they were written, by a large proportion of our nation, as well 
as a tolerably competent memorial of the qualities of that 
wonderful man to whom they relate : and it is agreed on all 
hands that a very full memorial ought to be transmitted to 
posterity, since the subject is such a person as they probably 
may never see. 

The collection contains a great deal of good writing, 
though but few specimens of the highest order. In the 
sum of the effect of all these delineations, the reader will 
be in* possession of a bold and substantially just idea of the 
man, provided he is sufficiently instructed in Christianity 
to make, from his own judgment, certain corrections in the 
moral lights and shades, in touching which very few of these 
numerous painters seem to have recollected or cared to 
direct a single look towards the standard of character held 
forth in revelation. A man like Eox, it should seem, is 
quite beyond the cognizance of Christianity. But this point 
we may slightly notice a page or two further on. To say 
that the prominent lines of Fox's character are justly drawn 
in many of these pieces, is no very high praise ; the distinc- 
tions of that character .being so strong, obvious, and simple, 
that a very moderate degree of skill was sufficient to dis- 
criminate and describe them. It may be easier to describe 
the Giant' s Causeway or Mount iEtna, than many of the 
most diminutive productions of nature, or most trifling 



360 CHARACTEKS 0E POX. 

works of art. It was said of Fox's countenance, that the 
most ordinary artist could not well contrive to fail of pro- 
ducing some tolerable likeness of features so marked ; and 
in the same manner, even the least accomplished of the 
thirty describers of his mind, here brought together, has 
found it easy enough to tell of his vast comprehension, his 
natural logic, his power of simplifying, his unaffected energy, 
his candour, his bold and plain language, and his friendly, 
plain manners. In point of dignity the subject was worthy 
of Macintosh, whose celebrated eulogium is inserted among 
the rest ; but at the same time its obviousness was such, 
that all the dulness of Messrs. and , belabour- 
ing and contorting itself, to the pain and pity of all be- 
holders, to bring out something that should seem knowing 
and philosophic, new and fine, could not miss the substan- 
tial truth — and has not prevented their perceiving nor their 
saying, though in the most affected and pompous idiom, just 
the same things that have been plain to every body these 
forty years. It could not be supposed there was any great 
difficulty in saying such things ; yet for having said such 
things, with a due portion of rhetoric, worked out of com- 
monplace into conceit or bombast, many a writer, possessed 
of less discrimination than would have been required for 
sketching the character of his erand-boy, has taken credit 
to himself as an eloquent and sagacious eulogist of Mr. Fox, 
whose death supplied so excellent an occasion to all who 
were capable of working in prose or rhyme. The occasion 
was indeed so singularly good for a piece of fine composi- 
tion, that we really are tempted to doubt the sincerity of 
some of these eloquent writers, when they are professing to 
deplore it. We apprehend that persons desperately set on 
being fine writers, have a different mode from other men of 
estimating the loss of heroes and patriots ; nor is there any 
doubt on earth that we have a very considerable number of 
persons in England, whose strongest emotion' on entering 
Westminster Abbey, and approaching the spot where Fox's 
remains are deposited, would arise- from the complacent 
recollection of the splendid paragraphs they had been moved 
to indite by the event that consigned him to the dust. 
And if, on the spot, this self-gratulation should yield by 
degrees to more gloomy sentiments, the fair probability is, 



EXTEAVAGA^T EULOGY. 361 

that one of the most prevailing of these sentiments would 
arise from the consideration, that there is no chance of such 
another opportunity of sinning. These observations may 
appear of a cynical cast, but we are nevertheless confident 
of the concurring judgment of every discerning person 
who shall deliberately read through the whole of this selec- 
tion ; for along with a considerable share of very intelligent 
and reasonable authorship, there is a noble quantity of 
elaborate bombastic extravagance, vain artifice of diction, 
and affectation of philosophic development ; precisely the 
right sort of composition to prove the writers devoid of any 
real sorrow for the mournful event, and most specifically 
fitted to become ridiculous when forcing itself with a singu- 
larly unlucky perversity into a contrast with the simplicity 
and strength of Pox's eloquence. In any place that allowed 
room, it might be both amusing and beneficial to make a 
formal exhibition of this contrast ; in our page it will be 
enough to quote a few short specimens of a kind of elo- 
quence, to which it ought to be confessed even by Mr. Fox's 
warmest admirers, that his genius would never have mounted 
nor dared to aspire. It is proper to premise, that the 
learned editor's impartiality has admitted several pieces 
in which Pox's praises are given under the bias of hostile 
party spirit. 

The oratorical extravagance that scorns the just rules of 
rhetoric, can seldom be contented with itself till it has 
also offered some insult to those of religion. In the present 
collection it is very remarkable, however, that the news- 
paper and magazine panegyrists have in a good measure 
avoided this sin, and left it to be committed almost exclu- 
sively by the reverend writers. Thus we have one preacher 
of religion calling Pox's eloquence " divine," and saying 
that he predicted the consequences of the political measures 
adopted at a particular crisis with a " precision little short 
of inspiration ;" another averring that, as to prescience, 
" his mind seemed to brighten with a ray of divinity ;" an- 
other ascribing " boundless stretch of thought," and still 
another declaring that " the comprehension of his mind was 
almost unlimited," and apostrophizing the Deity in the 
following terms : — 



362 CHAEACTEES OF FOX. 

" Gracious God ! we bend in submission to thy will : we 
acknowledge thine infinite wisdom, and we adore thy righteous 
though inscrutable dispensations ; but, when the little passions 
of the present day are extinct and forgotten, remote generations 
shall lament that it was thy pleasure to take away from thy 
ikvoured land, in the very moment when he was most required, 
this efficient instrument of thy benevolence ; and shall reverently 
ask of thee why thine economy has only once, in a long succes- 
sion of ages, imparted to an individual of our species so powerful 
a genius to design, and so ardent a desire to accomplish the 
purposes of good." — P. 148. 

This address to the Almighty does really appear to us 
like a very broad hint to him that he must now, in assisting 
our nation, do as well as he can with inferior means ; having 
unaccountably deprived himself of the very best instrument 
he ever had for the purpose. It at least strangely forgets, 
in the divine presence, how absolutely the efficiency of all 
means depends on the divine will. We say nothing of the 
injudiciousness and extravagance of thus assuming, in an 
an address to the Being who knows all men, that a particular 
English senator was collossally superior, in genius and 
benevolence, to the whole human race for " a long succes- 
sion of ages;" and representing that "remote genera- 
tions" will be almost moved to expostulate with the 
Supreme Governor on account of this senator having died 
at so premature an age as fifty-nine. 

The impiety of attributing without ceremony the deliver- 
ance and safety of nations, not only in general to mere 
human agency, but also specifically to this or the other indi- 
vidual, prevails in this collection in about the same degree 
as in the general course of conversation. One instance, 
however, occurs of remonstrance against this notion in the 
latter snaps, and we are tempted to quote it as containing a 
wonder; for while transferring dependence for national 
salvation from individual men to the general spirit of the 
people, it does nevertheless actually seem to recognize in 
passing, that there exists something greater than man. 

" But, profound as our grief is, and deeply as our sensibility 
is wounded, we must say, we were never of the number of those 
who imagined that the ruin or the salvation of the country 
depended on Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, or any other man, however ele- 
vated in rank, or distinguished by talents — but, under Providence, 



NATIONAL SELF-IDOLATKY. 363 

to the public spirit of the people themselves. Of this opinion 
we remain ; and much as we wished for the life, and deeply as 
we deplore the death, of this transcendently great man, we fear 
not for our country. Those on whose conduct her welfare de- 
pends still live, and will continue to live so long as the waves 
shall encircle her shores. Kings, heroes, and statesmen — Edwards, 
Henries, Marlboroughs, Nelsons, Pitts, and Foxes, from time to 
time flourish and disappear — the people never die ! Then let 
them know their own dignity — let them depend on their own 
virtue — let them endeavour, let them deserve, to be free and 
invincible — and till their sea can be dried up, and their rocks 
crumbled, they shall never be conquered or enslaved." 

Though certainly not sorry to learn that there is such a 
thing as Providence, that is, we suppose, the government 
of the Deity, we may be allowed to entertain some little 
doubt and fear, whether, under that government, such 
shouts of self-idolatry, such explosions of pride and pre- 
sumption, are the best omens of ultimate triumph. It is 
not so long since, but that we can remember sentiments and 
language very much in this strain being circulated among 
the Austrian people and armies, a little after the battle of 
Esslingen — we should rather say, a little before the battle 
of "Wagram. 

In entering on the perusal of a large assemblage of cha- 
racters of Pox, most of them from the opening sentences, 
avowedly encomiastic, it was inevitable to anticipate for the 
writers a considerable degree of difficulty in combining a 
language of almost unbroken eulogy on the character, with 
the language of reverential respect to religious and moral 
principles. This respect, we were to take it as a matter of 
course, would at any rate be sacredly maintained by the 
Christian ministers who appeared among the writers. "We 
shall bring together a few short extracts, to show, that, if it 
is not too flattering an estimate of the religious and moral 
sentiments of the British people, laic and ecclesiastic, to 
take this selection as the standard, we have good reason to 
contrast ourselves so complacently with the infidels across 
the Channel. 

Moral and religious principles are more distinctly adverted 
to, in connexion with Pox's character, in a piece to which 
the editor has prefixed, we suppose on sufficient authority, 



364 CHAKACTEKS OF POX. 

the name of the " Eev. Eobert Fellowes," than in any part 
of the collection. In a literary point of view, also, the paper 
is remarkable, as displaying one of the most violent qnarrels 
with unkind Minerva that we have ever witnessed. From 
beginning to end it is a furious effort to be grand, to be 
profound, to be comprehensive, to be imperial, to be oracular, 
and all so exactly in Fox's own simple manner, — as witness 
abundance of sentences like these : " The heart of Mr. Fox 
was tenanted by none of those squalid forms which appear to 
have fixed their dwelling in that of Mr. Pitt;" "as the 
opinions which Mr. Fox maintained were founded on the 
basis of justice and of truth, they partook of the sanctity 
and eternity of moral obligation ;" " his was an ambition of 
a noble kind — it was never forsaken by justice, and it 
mounted even to the heavens on the wing of humanity." 
But it is only on account of the reverend writer's austere 
notions of morality and religion that we notice this paper 
more particularly than the others. 

"Many who have no religion themselves, or in whom the 
varnish of exterior decorum is employed as a substitute for 
virtue, have often vented their slanders on the vices of Mr. Fox. 
But, of those vices which are of the most unsocial and malignant 
cast, we do nOt believe that one can fairly be laid to his charge. 
The impetuous ardour of his temperament, and the restless ac- 
tivity of his mind, which, in whatever was the object of pursuit, 
never stagnated in indifference, often made him pass the limits 
of discretion. But the frigid calculations of mercantile prudence 
seem to be suited only to ordinary minds. The mind of Mr. Fox 
was not of that class." — P. 169. 

Does the reverend writer also 'preach that, provided men 
have an " impetuous ardour of temperament," the difference 
between virtue and vice is for their sakes reduced by the 
Divine Lawgiver to a point of discretion ? Does he expressly 
teach the young men who are destroying themselves in the 
bagnio and the gambling-house, that their proper answer to 
the admonitions of their distressed parents or other friends 
is, " that the calculations of mercantile prudence are suited 
only to ordinary minds ?" It is curious to think what an 
outcry of affected horror there would have been, if any of the 
clergymen distinguished by the term evangelical had let such 
a passage appear under his name. It is followed, in the 



fox's eeligious tenets. 365 

way of challenge to the hypocrites or the puritans, with an 
ostentatious enumeration of the bad things of which Mr. 
Fox was not guilty ; just as if it were the grossest illiberality 
to censure any character till it is stained and loaded with 
every vice of which human nature is capable. The passage 
bearing a reference to religion runs thus : — 

" Though Mr. Fox was no formal religionist, yet the essence of 
religion which centres in charity was the predominant sensation 
of his heart. If religion consists in doing to others as we would 
they should do to us, if it have any connexion with a holy 
endeavour to preserve peace on earth and good will among men 
(and what Christian will deny this ?) then we will venture to 
say, that Mr. Fox, who never made any show of religion, w,as, 
in fact, one of the most religious men of the age. The great 
object of his political life was to prevent the havoc of war, and 
preserve the world in peace." — P. 171. 

"With respect to these sentences we have only to say, that 
we cannot wish to reduce a reverend subscriber to the 
thirty-nine "Articles of Religion" to any awkward necessity 
of plainly declaring whether he thinks a belief of the truth, 
that is, of the divine origin, of Christianity, is at all of the 
" essence" of a religious character. 

All this is suffered to pass by the reverend Philopatris 
Varvicensis, who, by the fact of selecting the pieces, is to 
be understood, as he observes in the preface, as giving " a 
proof that his own mind was not unfavourably impressed 
with the propriety of the matter or the graces of the style." 

The reader will naturally inquire how the reverend Editor 
has acquitted himself, on the same subjects, in his own 
person. In the extract from the preface to Bellendenus, 
very properly placed at the head of this series of "characters," 
Philopatris has purchased a kind of license to exert his 
ingenuity in the character of apologist, by first pronouncing 
a decided censure in the character of moralist. 

In his letter of nearly a hundred and forty pages, which 
follows the "selection" he adverts to Mr. Pox's religious 
principles in one interesting paragraph which we shall 
transcribe. 

" Of Mr. Fox's religious tenets, I cannot speak so fully as, 
from motives not of impertinent curiosity, but of friendly anxiety, 
you may be disposed to wish. But I have often remarked that, 



366 CHARACTERS OF FOX. 

upon religious subjects he did not talk irreverently, and generally 
appeared unwilling to talk at all before strangers or friends. 
When we look back to the studies, and indeed the frailties of his 
youth, it were idle to suppose that he was deeply versed in 
theological lore. Yet, from conversations which have inciden- 
tally passed between him and myself, I am induced to think 
that, according to the views he had taken of Christianity, he did 
not find any decisive evidence for several doctrines which many 
of the wisest of the sons of men have believed with the utmost 
sincerity, and defended with the most powerful aids of criticism, 
history, and philosophy. But he occasionally professed, and 
from his known veracity, we may be sure that he inwardly felt, 
the highest approbation of its pure and benevolent precepts. 
Upon these, as upon many other topics, he was too delicate to 
wound the feelings of good men, whose conviction might be 
firmer and more distinct than his own. He was too wise 
to insult with impious mockery the received opinions of mankind, 
when they were favourable to morality. He preserved the same 
regard to propriety, the same readiness to attend to information, 
when it was offered to him without sly circumvention, or pert 
defiance, the same respect to the virtues and attainments of 
those who differed from him, and the same solicitude for the 
happiness of his fellow creatures. Thus much may be said with 
propriety, because it can be said with truth ; and glad should I 
be if it were in my power to say more upon a point of character, 
which, in such a man, could not escape the observation of the 
serious, the misconceptions of the ignorant, and the censures of 
the uncharitable/'— P. 219. 

Ought we to pretend to be at a loss as to the real meaning 
of this statement ? and when we find it followed by what 
we sincerely wish we could call by any other denomination, 
than an apology for religious scepticism ? The apology is 
indeed conditional, the benefit of it being restricted to those 
who " are too discreet to proclaim their speculative scruples, 
and too decorous to disseminate them." This propriety 
being preserved inviolate, " perhaps," says our learned 
divine, " in many cases it is for the Searcher of all hearts 
alone to determine either the merit of assent, or the demerit 
of suspense;" the import of which observation the reader 
had better not examine, if he is resolved that a Christian 
minister shall not be understood to insinuate, that we may 
disregard those parts of divine revelation which declare 
positively that no man to whom that revelation is presented 



APOLOGY FOE EELIGTOTTS SCEPTICISM. 367 

can with innocence and impunity withhold his acceptance. 
This reference to the " Searcher of hearts " in behalf of 
scepticism, in contempt of his own unequivocal denuncia- 
tions of the guilt and punishment of unbelief, is with con- 
sistency enough, and without much further dereliction of 
Christian principles, followed, towards the close of this elo- 
quent essay, by a direct invasion of that awful secret office 
of judgment which had just been pretended to be left to his 
own sovereign authority ; for that sovereign secret judgment 
is invaded, when the decision is here boldly assumed ; and 
the decision is here boldly assumed in the case of the 
deceased statesman, the " demerits," and therefore the con- 
sequences, of whose scepticism were, as we understood, to 
have been left to the sole judgment of the " Searcher of 
hearts." There is no sign of the trembling awe which 
would naturally accompany such a reference and the uncer- 
tainty respecting the result, when our author says, " In the 
bosoms of those who attended him in his last moments, it 
(the complacent character of his death) must excite the 
most serious wishes, that their own end ' may be like his,.' 
and to himself, we trust, it was, in the language of Milton, 
'a gentle wafting to immortal life.'" But as if doubtful, 
nevertheless, of the propriety of expressing the confidence 
in a form liable to be brought to the test of revelation, our 
divine adopts the words of Tacitus concerning Agricola, 
" Si quis piorum manibus locus, si, ut sapientibus placet, 
non cum corpore extinguuntur inagnae animse ; placide 
quiescat," &c. 

No religious reader of the series of extracts given in the 
last few pages, can fail to be struck with the reflection to 
what an unknown extent the mischief may be too reason- 
ably apprehended to reach, which is done by a character in 
which superlative talents and some unquestionable virtues 
are combined with vice and the absence of religious princi- 
ples, when it is seen that even the teachers of religion are 
by such a character seduced to betray it. It is obvious how 
powerful the depraving influence is likely to be on other 
men, who have not the information, the convictions, or the 
responsibility, implied and involved in the sacred profession, 
and who are perhaps half vicious and half sceptical already, 
if that influence is so strong as to make one most learned 



368 CHA.EACTEES OF POX.. 

Christian divine, in a work intended and expected to go 
down to a future age, confidently dismiss to those abodes of 
the blessed* which Christianity only assures its disciples, 
the person whom he has just confessed (we cannot honestly 
interpret the passage in any other sense) to be not a believer 
in the truth of that religion; — if the influence is so strong 
as to make another divine proclaim with triumph that " He 
died with the blessed hope of a Christian ;" — if it is so strong 
as to make a third divine declare his exaltation " above yon 
azure vault of blazing stars ;" — and so strong as to make a 
fourth pronounce him " one of the most religious men of 
the age," and scout, in highly laboured sentences of con- 
tempt, the ill-natured moralists, or the hypocrites, who 
would describe some of the most pernicious vices in any 
other terms than, "passing the limits of discretion." There 
was evidently no need of the assistance of these reverend 
gentlemen, to make the influence sufficiently extensive and 
mischievous ; and how it may comport with the sacred pro- 
fession, the grand object of which is to urge the infinite 
importance of the religion of Christ, to act as auxiliaries of 
that influence, must be left to their own consciences. 

"We must also remark how ungenerous it is to the memory 
of the great statesman, thus to force his character before 
the public in the precise form, and as if for the precise pur- 
pose, of a palliative of vice and religious indifference or 
unbelief. His pretended friends, when they might have 
maintained the continuity of their encomium by avoiding to 
advert to these points, choose formally to recognize them as 
parts of a character, which, notwithstanding these very 
serious evils, having still many excellences, and being great 
and imposing, they can hold up with an air of malicious 
triumph that seems to say, "Now brand these vices, and 
denounce, with your godly illiberality, this disregard of 
Christianity, if you dare ; for in so doing you will attack 
one of the greatest geniuses and sincerest patriots of the 
age ; you will insult the revered memory of the illustrious 

* Unless indeed our divine believes, according to Tacitus and 
his " sapientes," in the existence of some elysium, some other 
happy state of spirits, distinct from that revealed in the New 
Testament, in the existence of which he also believes. 



fox's moeal defects. 369 

Fox." It is the old military stratagem of protecting the 
front from attack, by covering it with persons accounted 
privileged or sacred. The religious critic is reduced to the 
alternative, of either letting these reverend gentlemen have 
everything their own way with respect to the slightness of 
the harm and final danger of gaming, libertinism, and scep- 
ticism, — or incurring the imputation of illiberality, perhaps 
malignity, towards the splendid qualities of Fox ; which, in 
these eulogiums, are artfully disposed for throwing their 
rays across the deep moral and religious shades of the 
character, and thus giving them a deceptive appearance of 
extenuated evil. This imputation can be averted by no 
professions of admiration of his stupendous talents, of his 
zeal and labours in the cause of freedom and peace, and of 
his kind and ingenuous disposition ; professions which, if 
they were not a most needless tribute to a character so pre- 
eminently rich in fame, we should make with a sentiment 
rather more cordially emphatic, we think, than the most 
pompous and sonorous of these congregated rhetoricians. 
They are many of them too fine, and too much occupied 
with themselves as being so fine, to reach the pitch of our 
regret that the nation has now no such man to place at the 
head of its affairs ; and we perceive such momentous inte- 
rests, as scarcely ever occurred to the thoughts of these 
panegyrists, involved in those doctrines of freedom of which 
Fox was so noble an advocate. But all this will avail us 
nothing with a certain class of people, unless we accede to a 
suspension in his favour of the obligations of Christian 
morality and Christian faith. We must, however, take the 
consequences of venturing to assume, against such persons 
in general, and against some of these reverend gentlemen in 
particular, that, if the Christian religion be true, the vicious 
squandering of great pecuniary means of doing good, and 
the revels of almost boundless libertinism, followed by an 
illicit connexion protracted to a late period of life, are great 
crimes in any man ; and that they acquire an aggravation, 
instead of a diminution, of their turpitude, by being con- 
nected with an exalted intellect; and we must endure as 
well as we can the contempt of the E-ev. Philopatris, the 
Eev. Mr. Fellowes, &c, for the fanaticism of doubting 
whether a sceptical indifference to Christianity is exactly 



370 CHARACTERS OF EOX. 

the proper state of mind to constitute a man " one of the 
most religious men of the age," or to authorize the confi- 
dence which, after he is departed, assigns him to the com- 
pany of the spirits of the just. 

If the junta of panegyrists had carefully abstained from 
whatever would interfere with the laws of religion, and con- 
fined themselves to a display of Fox's character as a states- 
man, an orator, a scholar, and a gentleman, it might have 
been no compulsory duty of serious critics to remind the 
reader, that the possession of the specific excellences appro- 
priate to these characters cannot transfer the individual 
into a distinct economy from that in which the Divine 
Being has placed the rest of the species, with regard to 
religious obligations and the pre-requisites to future happi- 
ness ; and if duty permitted them to be silent on this head, 
assuredly policy, in these times, would enjoin them to be 
so. But when, instead of this abstinence, the writers before 
us have expressly and optionally pointed at religion in order 
virtually to explode it by means of Mr. Pox's character, we 
are compelled to offend some readers perhaps once more, by 
asserting (notwithstanding our ardent love of liberty and 
admiration of Mr. Pox), that it is necessary for a man to be 
a Christian, even though he be an excellent statesman and 
consummate orator. 

The letter of Philopatris completes the first volume. It 
combines sketches of Mr. Pox's character, with a desultory 
discussion of the political principles on which he acted, and 
a great number of incidental topics, moral, philosophical, and 
literary. The writer's mind is teeming over with all manner 
of knowledge, and unfettered from all manner of method. 
Not however that he cannot when he pleases show himself a 
most perfect master of every art of arrangement, and every 
dexterity of logic. But he is too sprightly to carry on this 
arrangement and logic with a protracted regularity. The 
composition runs, jumps, and darts along a mazy and endless 
series of luckinesses, smartnesses, quaintnesses, artifices, 
acutenesses, and brilliances. At every inch the irregular 
track is beset with subtilties, discriminations, and antitheses. 
Between virid fancy and intellectual sharpness, all the 
paragraphs are just like chevaux de frize ; throw them in 
any way you please, they still present a point. And for 



DB. PAKE'S VAEIED ATTAINMENTS. 371 

passing with perfect ease from one department of literature 
and knowledge to another, Philopatris is the very Mercury. 
Nay, we will acknowledge our suspicions that we have got 
an avatar of the Hindoo god Crishna, of whom it is recorded 
that, at one particular season in ancient times, he would 
present himself, all at his ease, in whichsoever of a vast 
variety of apartments the amazed beholder might succes- 
sively look into. Within the space of a dozen pages, our 
author shall be found in the ancient classics and the modern 
reviews ; in politics and in particles ; in antiquities and inci- 
dents of the day ; in theology, morals, history, poetry, and 
contemporary biography ; in the company of Solon and 
Thales, and that of Sir Samuel Romilly. And yet, from his 
mind being so full of analogies, which approach to a contact 
at so many points, his transitions do not appear awkward or 
abrupt. But the transition in which he shows the most 
amazing facility, is that from all things and languages into 
Greek, By some inconceivable law of juxta-position, he 
seems on the very edge of this at all times and places. 

In this slight description, we refer fully as much to the 
volume of notes as to the letter concerning Pox, in which 
letter the strong interest of friendship has kept the writer 
more constant to his subject. In many points, this letter 
does eminent justice to the subject, as it abounds with acute 
discriminations. 

The volume of notes is absolutely a Hercynian forest, on 
which, after the undue length of time already expended on 
the work, we must not enter. The mass is not the less 
multifarious, from its being almost all comprised in two 
notes, each of them about two hundred pages long. The 
one is on the subject of the penal laws, the other on Fox's 
historical work. In the former, the author proposes to 
abrogate the whole penal code, and replace it by a more 
mild and philosophical system, in a great measure declining 
the aid of capital punishment. The several species of crime 
are ingeniously discussed, with a view to the proof that some 
other form of punishment would better correct or avenge. 
In the miscellaneous discourse, put in the form of a note on 
the subject of Mr. Pox's work, there is a great deal of 
research into the ecclesiastical history of oar country. 
Philopatris is the ardent friend of the principles of civil 

b b 2 



372 EDUCATION IE" EELATION TO EELIGION". 

liberty and of religious liberty — as far as concerns the 
Roman Catholics; but it seems there has of late years 
arisen a most pestilent set of fanatics, under the assumed 
name of evangelical Christians, the outcasts of reason, the 
disgrace of our country, and the danger of our Established 
Church. "Well then, shall we persecute them, shall we 
coerce them ? Oh, no ! says he, I am the enthusiastic friend 
of freedom ; we must only " by well-considered and well- 
applied regulations restrain them." And this is all that has 
been learned from all the argument and eloquence of Pox! 
"We have never so impressively felt the superiority of that 
great patriot's mind, and the irreparable loss the nation has 
suffered in his removal, as since we have seen how little of 
his principles and of his illumination have been left among 
his professed friends and disciples. This most learned work, 
after soaring and glittering a length of eight hundred pages, 
ends in the completest bathos that ever learned performance 
merged in — it actually falls and splashes in praises of the 
"Barrister." 



EDUCATION IN RELATION TO RELIGION. 

Essays on Professional Education. By R. L. Edgeworth, Esq., 
E.R.S., M.R.I.A., &c. 4to. 1810. 

In literary partnership with a female relative, this author 
has become sufficiently well known to the public, to enable 
it to prejudge with tolerable confidence the general qualities 
of any work he might write, especially on the subject of 
education. His book will be opened with the expectation 
of a very good share of valuable instruction, the result of a 
long and careful exercise of sound sense on the habits of 
society, on the experience of education, and on a great 
multitude of books. There will be no hope of convicting the 
author of enthusiasm for a system, or servility to any 
distinguished authority. It will be expected that good use 
will be made of the opinions of the most opposite speculatists, 
and that most of the opinions that are approved will be sup- 



PRINCIPLES AND PLANS OP EDUCATION. 373 

ported by some reference to experiments by which they have 
been verified. It will be expected that, while a philosophic 
manner and diction are avoided, and all speculations are 
constantly applied to a practical purpose, full advantage will 
yet be taken of those explanations which the laws of our 
nature have received from the best modern philosophers. 
The reader will reckon on finding it constantly maintained, that 
the influence of facts has fully as efficient an operation as in- 
struction by words, in forming the human character ; and 
he will not be surprised at a tone of somewhat more 
positive confidence than himself is happy enough to entertain, 
of the complete and necessary success of the process when 
it unites the proper facts and the proper instructions. As 
a moralist, it will perhaps raise no wonder if the author 
should be found so much a man of the world, as to admit 
various convenient compromises between the pure principles 
of virtue, and the customs and prejudices of society ; and as 
to religion, no man will expect bigotry, or ascetic and in- 
commodious piety, or any sort of doctrinal theology. There 
will be an agreeable and confident expectation of a great 
variety of pertinent anecdotes, supplied from history and 
observation, at once to relieve and illustrate the reasonings. 
The reader will be prepared to accept this mode of infusing 
both vivacity and instructive force into the composition, 
instead of brilliance of imagination ; comprehensive know- 
ledge instead of argumentative subtlety; and perspicuity of 
language instead of elegance. 

The first essay, or chapter, proposes principles and plans 
for those stages of education, which, preceding the direct 
training for a particular profession, admit of a discipline in 
many points common to the children destined to all the pro- 
fessions. And yet, as parents are urged to fix at a very 
early period the future profession of each of their sons, they 
are properly recommended to introduce at an early stage of 
this general discipline a specific modification of it, prospective 
to the profession selected. In advising parents to this early 
choice, the author explodes, in a great measure, the popular 
notion of a natural inherent determination towards some one 
pursuit more than another, commonly called " peculiar 
genius," "impulse of genius," "bent of mind," "natural 
turn," &c. In attacking this notion, he calls in the power- 



374 EDUCATION IN RELATION TO KELIGION. 

ful aid of Johnson, who always manifested an extreme anti- 
pathy to it. " I hate," said he, " to hear people ask children 
whether they will be bishops, or chancellors, or generals, or 
what profession their genius leads them to : do not they 
know, that a boy of seven years old has a genius for nothing 
but spinning a top and eating apple-pie ?" Mr. Edge worth 
condemns the folly of waiting in expectation that the sup- 
posed natural genius will disclose itself, or be drawn forth 
by some accident ; during all which time the general disci- 
pline of education will probably be very remiss, the specific 
training preparatory to professional studies will be systemati- 
cally avoided, and the youth is either growing up to be 
fit for nothing, or is perhaps determined at last by a casual 
event, or unfortunate acquaintance, to the very worst selec- 
tion that he could have made in the whole catalogue of em- 
ployments. It is insisted, that methods which will generally 
prove effectual, may be adopted by parents, to give the 
child a preference for any department of learning or action 
they choose, and to make him sedulous to acquire the 
requisite qualifications. The author notices some of the 
most remarkable instances recorded of persons being deter- 
mined by a particular accident to the pursuits in which they 
afterwards excelled ; as Cowley's passion for poetry origin- 
ated from his meeting with the "Fairy Queen" in his mother's 
window ; and Sir Joshua Reynolds's for painting, from his 
chancing to open a book by Richardson, on that subject, at a 
friend's house. Mr. Edgeworth observes, that the effect 
produced by reading these books would not have been less if 
they had been laid in the way by design ; and that, besides, 
when an impression is to be made by design, the effect is not 
left to depend on a single impression, since by a judicious 
management the child may be subjected to a combination 
and a series of impressions all tending to the same point. 
The manner of conducting this process is sketched with a 
great deal of knowledge and judgment in these Essays. If 
the magnitude and certainty of the effect to be thus pro- 
duced are assumed in terms rather too little qualified, it is an 
error on the right side ; since it will invigorate the motive 
by which parents and friends are to be prompted to design 
and persever r jhce, and since nothing can be practically more 
mischievous.; than the fancy that all is to be done oy some 



THE DISCIPLINE OE EAELY IMPHESSIOtfS. 375 

innate predisposition and adaptation, aided by fortuitous 
occurrences. At the same time, our author does not need 
to be reminded, that, as a thousand boys of the same ages as 
Cowley and Reynolds might have met with, and partly read, 
the "Fairy Queen," and the book on painting, without receiv- 
ing from them any strong determination to poetry or paint- 
ing ; so, from the same cause, — the same intrinsic mental 
difference, whatever be the ultimate principle of that dif- 
ference, — the proposed discipline of multiplied and successive 
impressions, passing just an equal length of time on a 
thousand youthful minds, will eventually leave, notwithstand- 
ing, all imaginable varieties in their dispositions and 
qualifications. Nevertheless, there will be many more 
heroes, or orators, or engineers, than if no such process had 
been employed; and those who fail to become heroic, 
or eloquent, or scientific, will yet be less absolutely the 
reverse of those characters, than they would otherwise have 
been. Our author touches but briefly on the nature of that 
undeniable original distinction which constitutes what is 
denominated genius ; and maintains, very reasonably, that 
whatever might have been the nature, the cause, or the 
amount, of the inherent original difference between such 
men as Newton, Milton, and Locke, and ordinary men, that 
original difference was probably far less than the actual 
difference after the full effect of impressions, cultivation, and 
exertion. He suggests some very useful cautions to parents, 
against treating their children according to the mysterious 
and invidious distinction of " genius " and " no genius." 

The defects and the cultivation of memory are shortly 
noticed ; and it is maintained, that any memory may be so 
disciplined, as to be quite competent to the most important 
matters of business and science. In proof of this, and as a 
lesson on the best mode of cultivation, the example of Le 
Sage, the philosopher of Geneva, is introduced, and would 
have been very instructive if his method of retaining his 
knowledge by connecting it with a set of general principles 
(a sort of corks to keep it in buoyancy), had been more 
precisely explained by means of two or three exemplifications. 
There are some very useful observations on the several rela- 
tions of ideas which are the instruments of recollection ; as 
resemblance, contrariety, contiguity, and cause and effect ; 



376 EDUCATION Iff RELATION TO RELIGION. 

it is strongly and justly insisted, that the memory which 
operates most by means of the last of these relations is by 
far the most useful, and therefore that the best mode of 
cultivating it is a severe attention to this relation. 

Mr. Edgeworth censures, but not in illiberal language, 
the system which prevails in our public schools, and our 
colleges, in which so disproportionate a measure of time is 
devoted to classical studies, and in the former of which the 
course of instruction is the same for all the youth, though 
they are intended for all the different professions. He 
advises not to force any violent reforms on these ancient 
institutions, but to induce their gradual and voluntary 
amelioration, or, if that be possible, to superannuate them 7 
by means of new though smaller seminaries, in which a much 
greater share of attention shall be given to science, to studies 
of direct moral and political utility, and to the peculiar pre- 
paration for professions. He adverts to the system of edu- 
cation adopted by the Jesuits; and the plans devised by 
Frederic " the Great," as he is here designated ; and 
reviews at some length the succession of magnificent schemes 
projected by the French philosophers before and in the 
course of the Revolution. Some of these schemes were prac- 
tically 'attempted, and they failed, partly from being on too 
vast a scale, and beginning with too high a species of instruc- 
tion, and partly from that state of national .tumult which 
withdrew both the attention and the pecuniary support 
indispensable to these great undertakings. At length, a 
party of philosophers obtained the complete establishment 
of a more limited, but as far it extends, more effective insti- 
tution, under the denomination of Ecole Polytechnique. In 
the general course of education in France, however, our 
author observes, classical literature has of late years been 
regarded with such indifference or contempt, as to have 
threatened a depravation of taste and of language ; the 
studies of the youth having been directed with incompara- 
bly the most emulation and ardour to the branches of 
knowledge related or capable of being applied to the art of 
war. He relates how the men of science rose to the highest 
importance at the very period at which it might have been 
previously imagined they must have sunk into utter obscurity 
in the hour of revolutionary violence and terror. 



CLEEICAL EDUCATION. 377 

Our author's scheme for the formation of an improved 
order of elementary and superior schools in this country, is 
laid down with much good sense, and without visionary extra- 
vagance, particularly without the extravagance of expecting 
any assistance from the legislature. He would create and 
support them simply by the conviction, in the minds of 
parents in each town and village, of the usefulness and even 
necessity of such a mode of instruction as he advises ; a 
mode which should include, without any ostentation, an 
attention to more branches of knowledge than are usually 
acquired in schools. Or, if it were desirable there should 
be any expedient more formal, for promoting such schools, 
than merely the wish of parents to obtain such instruction, 
he recommends there should be an association of gentlemen 
in London to patronize their formation in any part of the 
country to which they can extend their influence and aid. 
But the only efficacious power to create competent semi- 
naries, is the concurrent will of a tolerable proportion of the 
parents, in any place, to have their children instructed in 
the rational manner proposed. 

The second essay is on Clerical Education. Considering 
the expensiveness of a residence at college, and the very 
inadequate salaries of curates, the author dissuades parents 
who have not such connexions as may assist their son's 
success in the church, from choosing this profession for 
him; unless they have fortune sufficient to contribute to 
his support for perhaps many years after his entrance on it, 
or he has already acquired a very strong determination of 
mind towards it, accompanied by such proofs of application 
and unusual talent as may warrant a presumption that he 
will make his way through all difficulties by the force of 
conspicuous merit. By making his ivay, is meant, of course, 
his attaining the emoluments and honours of the church ; 
and it is obvious enough, that a young man who has no 
means of doing this but his personal qualities and conduct, 
has little ground for such a presumption, when it is consi- 
dered how much the disposal of the ecclesiastical good things 
is regulated by parliamentary interest, and the favour of 
persons of rank. The parliamentary interest confessedly so 
powerful in making dignitaries and rich incumbents, our 
author decides to be partly beneficial and partly injurious to 
the church and to national morality. 



378 EDUCATION IN RELATION TO RELIGION. 

" That which is exerted by rich commoners or noble families 
to obtain livings for men of learning and virtue who have been 
tutors to their children, is highly advantageous ; it insures good 
education to our young nobility, and it encourages men of 
learning and talents in the middle or lower orders of life to 
instruct themselves and become fit for such employments, and 
worthy of such rewards. Parliamentary interest, influencing 
the distribution of clerical honours and emoluments, is also 
beneficial, as it tempts parents of good families and fortunes to 
educate younger sons for the church : they give, as it were, a 
family pledge for the good conduct of their children, who at the 
same time may, by their manners and rank, raise the whole 
profession in the esteem and respect of the public. Church 
benefices may thus be considered as a fund for the provision of 
the younger sons of our gentry and nobles ; and in this point of 
view it cannot surely be a matter of complaint to any of the 
higher and middle classes of the community that the clergy 
enjoy a large portion of the riches of the state." — P. 59. 

JSTo reader, it is presumed, can permit himself for one 
moment to doubt whether all these arrangements can fail to 
keep in view, as their grand object, the promotion of primi- 
tive Christianity among the people, or to prove the best 
possible means of teaching and exemplifying it ; whether the 
men from the inferior classes, thus seeking and attaining the 
preferments of the church through the medium of tutorships 
in noble families, be secure against all possibility of 
becoming sycophants in the course of their progress, and 
political tools at its conclusion ; or whether zealous piety, 
and a dereliction of the spirit and fashions of the world, be 
the necessary inheritance of the younger sons of the nobility 
and gentry. On these points there can be no doubt ; and 
therefore it is clear that thus far the parliamentary interest 
in question is highly beneficial to the Christian cause. But 
the subject has a dark side as well as a bright one ; and 
every reader will be at once grieved and astonished on 
reading the next paragraph, in which our author says, in so 
many words: "But parliamentary interest is not always 
employed in this manner ; it is sometimes exerted to obtain 
livings for the mean hanger-on of one lord, or the drinking, 
or the profligate companion of another." These are litera- 
tim the words, as they stand in the book before us ; but how 
is it possible they can be true ? How is it possible that any 



CLEEICAL EDUCATION. 379 

bishop will suffer such a man to declare before him that he 
is moved by the Holy Grhost to enter the sacred function ? 
Or, if it is after his entrance into the church that he 
becomes such a character, how is it possible an institution 
framed purely in aid of Christianity should fail to have the 
most peremptory regulations, not only for interdicting such 
a man from preferment to larger emoluments and more 
extensive cure of souls, but for expelling him from the 
ministry altogether ? 

If parents have resolved to devote a son to the church, a 
judicious education will, according to the essayist, infallibly 
make him a person to do honour to the sacred vocation. 
In order to determine the right method of education for this 
specific purpose, our author delineates at length the required 
character, in the successive official stages of curate, rector, 
and prelate. He informs us that " a good curate is not the 
man who boasts of being the boon companion of the jolly 
squire, who is seen following him and his houuds at full cry, 
leaping five-barred gates, the admiration of the hallooing 
heroes of the chace, or floundering in the mud, their sport 
and derision : he is not the man set officially, at the foot of 
his patron's table, "to smack his wine and rule his roast;" 
he neither drinks nor swears ; he scorns to become the 
buffoon, and never can become the butt of the company. 
Indeed, he does not feel it absolutely necessary to be 
continually in company." The character which our author 
proposes to create, is extremely amiable in all the situations 
and offices in which it is represented. The reader will be 
prepared not to expect any very strong emphasis to be laid 
on religion, in the strict sense of the word ; he may supply 
that desideratum from his own mind, to a sketch of exem- 
plary prudence, dignity, kindness to the poor and sick, 
diligence, propriety in the performance of the public offices 
of the church, and moderation on advancement to superior 
station. There seems a material omission in the description 
of a good rector. After the melancholy picture given of 
the misery and degradation suffered by many curates from 
extreme poverty, we confidently expected to find it made an 
essential point in the good character of the rector, never to 
suffer his curate to be in this situation from the parsimony 
of the stipend. As the legislature has declined to interfere 



380 EDUCATION IN BELATION TO RELIGION. 

in this concern, it lies with the holders of livings to give 
their curates that complacency in their office which accom- 
panies a respectable competence, or to gall them with the 
mortification, impatience, and disgust inflicted by a long, 
toilsome, and hunger-bitten apprenticeship to some better 
station, towards which they will be continually looking with 
a loathing and abhorrence of the present condition, and 
which they will be tempted to practise the grossest servility 
in order to obtain. "What must be the natural effect on the 
state of the church, of perhaps several thousands of its 
ministers having their characters and exertions subjected 
for many years, if not for life, to the operation of such feel- 
ings as these ? And what are all the gentlemanly qualities 
of a rector worth, if he can be content to see a fellow-clergy- 
man and his family half starving on the five per cent, which 
the said rector affords him from his ecclesiastical income, for 
taking the work of the parish off his hands ? 

Having exhibited the model of excellence in the different 
clerical ranks, in all of which he says it is the very same 
character that is required, and the highest of which none 
should attain without having commenced with the lowest, 
the writer proceeds to the proper training for making the 
good curate, rector, and bishop. And the plan includes 
something extremely specific and peculiar, for it proceeds 
on the principle that " the virtues of a clergyman should be 
founded on religion;" a foundation which we cannot, from 
this work, ascertain to be necessary to the virtue of other 
professional characters, or necessary to man in general as a 
moral agent. "We are not distinctly informed whether 
religion, that is of course Christianity, is to be considered 
as any thing more than a convenient basis for a profession, 
with its appropriate set of peculiar decorums ; or whether it 
is really a system of truth communicated by divine revela- 
tion. Nor are we taught to comprehend how, if Christianity 
is to be regarded as such a system, education in general, 
and education for the other particular professions, can be 
safely and innocently conducted under the exclusion of this 
divine system of doctrine and moral principles ; and not only 
an exclusion, but in some of the departments of education, a 
most pointed and acknowledged opposition. Possibly the 
light in which the subject is regarded is this, — that it is a 



PEITATB EDUCATION. 381 

very trifling question whether Christianity be true or false ; 
but that it teaches some principles and modes of action, the 
preyalence of which, to a certain extent, would be useful in 
society, and therefore it is desirable they should be incul- 
cated; while, on the other hand, the condition of society 
requires the prevalence also, to a certain extent, of directly 
opposite principles, and therefore the same regard to utility 
requires that other professions should support, and be 
supported by, those opposite principles. With entire 
gravity, our author takes quite the Christian ground, in 
settling the moral principles of the youth destined to the 
church. It is while deciding whether his education should 
be in a great measure private or at a public school. 

The private education recommended is not to be a recluse 
education : the youth is to see the friends and acquaintance 
of the family, and mix in general conversation. He is to be 
led gradually, and not with too much haste, into a compre- 
hension of the principal truths,— perhaps we should rather 
say, propositions or notions, — of religion, and into a firm 
faith in them, founded on the "broad basis of evidence." 
A devotional taste is to be created by " letting a child have 
opportunities of observing the sublime and beautiful appear- 
ances of nature, the rising and the setting sun, the storm of 
winter, and the opening flowers of spring," to all which, 
however, compared with the "top and apple pie," most 
children will probably manifest the utmost indifference. 
The impressions are to be reinforced by Mrs. Barbauld's 
beautiful hymns, by good descriptions of the striking objects 
in nature, and by good church music. The most simple and 
affecting narrative parts of the Bible are to be added as soon 
as they can be clearly understood ; but the author strongly 
disapproves of children at an early age being set to read the 
Bible at large, when a great portion of it must be unin- 
telligible to them, when the irksomeness of having it for a 
sort of task-book, and the carelessness resulting from con- 
stant familiarity with it, may predispose the pupil to regard 
it with dislike, and disqualify him for feeling the full 
impression of its sanctity and grandeur in subsequent life. 
Instructors are admonished to be cautious of giving the 
child erroneous and mean ideas of the Divine Being by 
minute illustrations or trivial and deceptive analogies ; of 



382 EDUCATION IN RELATION TO RELIGION. 

habitually threatening his vengeance on their faults, in the 
form either of immediate judgments or future retribution ; 
and of describing the future state with the particularity 
which must divest the idea of all its sublimity. Considering 
it as impossible, by the nature of the youthful mind, that 
very young children can be effectually governed by ideas of 
a remote futurity, our author advises not to make use of 
these ideas in governing them, " till reiterated experience 
shall have given them the habit of believing that what was 
future has become present." "With regard to attempting to 
connect, in the minds of the children, ideas of the divine 
anger, and the punishments of a future state, with their 
faults and vices, we think there are pious parents and 
teachers that need some admonition. To resort, with a 
promptitude which has at least the effect of profaneness, to 
these awful ideas, on every recurrence of carelessness or 
perversity, is the way both to bring those ideas into con- 
tempt, and to make all faults appear equal. It is also 
obvious, that, by trying this expedient on all occasions, 
parents will bring their authority into contempt. If they 
would not have that authority set at defiance, they must be 
able to point to immediate consequences, within their power 
to inflict on delinquency. Perhaps one of the most prudential 
rules respecting the enforcement on the minds of children of 
the conviction that they are accountable to an all-seeing 
though unseen Governor, and liable to the punishment of 
obstinate guilt in a future state, is, to take opportunities of 
impressing this idea the most cogently, at seasons when the 
children are not lying under any blame or displeasure, at 
moments of serious kindness on the part of the parents, and 
serious inquisitiveness on the part of the children, leaving in 
some degree the conviction to have its own effect, greater or 
less, in each particular instance of guilt, according to the 
greater or less degree of aggravation which the child's own 
conscience can be made secretly to acknowledge in that 
guilt. And another obvious rule will be, that when he is to 
be solemnly reminded of these religious sanctions and 
dangers in immediate connexion with an actual instance of 
criminality in his conduct, the instance should be one of the 
most serious of his faults, that will bear the utmost serious- 
ness of such an admonition. As to how early in life this 



PEOFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 383 

doctrine may be communicated, there needs no more precise 
rule than this ; that it may be as early as well-instructed 
children are found to show any signs of prolonged or return- 
ing inquisitiveness concerning the supreme Cause of all that 
they behold, and concerning what becomes of persous known 
to them in their neighbourhood, whom they find passing, 
one after another, through the change called death, about 
which their curiosity will not be at all satisfied by merely 
learning its name. These inquiries will often begin to 
interest them, and therefore these doctrines and sanctions 
of religion may be beneficially introduced into their minds, 
sooner a great deal than our author seems willing they 
should hear any thing about Grod as a Judge, or a future 
state of retribution. Besides, we do not know what the 
economy may be at Edgeworth's Town, but in a family 
where there is any avowed attention to religion, where the 
children are made acquainted with even only select portions 
of the Scriptures, where there are any visible acts of 
devotion, and where it is a practice to attend public 
worship, it is quite impossible to prevent them from 
acquiring the ideas in question in some form ; and, therefore, 
unless parents will adopt systematically, and maintain with 
the most vigilant care, the practical habits of atheists, in 
order to keep the children's minds clear of these ideas, 
there is an absolute necessity of presenting these ideas in a 
correct though inadequate form as early as possible to the 
mind, to prevent their being fixed there in a form that shall 
be absurd and injurious. 

The Essay proceeds to indicate the practical discipline for 
cultivating, or rather creating, the virtues of economy, 
charity, tolerance, and firmness of mind. Here we meet 
with one of the many instances of compromise between 
absolute principle and convenience. 

''In making the difference between education for different 
professions, we may observe that a clergyman's should essentially 
differ from a lawyer's in one respect. A boy intended for the 
bar may be, in some degree, indulged in that pertinacious temper, 
which glories in supporting an opinion by all the arguments 
that can be adduced in its favour ; but a boy designed for the 
church should never be encouraged to argue for victory ; he 
should never be applauded for pleading his cause well, for sup- 



384 EDUCATION IN BELATION TO EELIGION. 

porting his own opinion, or for decrying or exposing to ridicule 
that of his opponent." — P. 88. 

It seems quite a settled principle of our author's morality, 
thus to make the character of the man not only secondary 
to the professional character, but a sacrifice to it. JSTor can 
we know where the operation of this principle is to be 
limited, nor whether it has any limits. If, as in the case 
before us, the love of truth, and, by infallible consequence, 
the practical love of justice may thus be exploded, by a 
formal sanction to the love of victory, and to a pertinacity 
regardless of right and wrong, for the sake of producing 
professional expertness — what other virtue should we hesi- 
tate to sacrifice to the same object ? Thus explicitly 
tolerate and encourage in the pupil the contempt of one 
essential part of moral rectitude, and he may very justly 
laugh at his parents and tutors, when they are gravely 
enjoining him not to violate any of the rest. He may tell 
them he apprehends it may be of service in prosecuting 
some of his designs to throw aside one or two more of 
the articles commonly put by moralists among the es- 
sentials of virtue, and, that therefore, if they please, he 
had rather be excused listening to any canting lectures 
about integrity. And if the pure laws of moral excellence 
are to be deposed from their authority at all, we presume 
the benefit of the exemption ought not to be confined to the 
persons intended to figure at the bar. Some other employ- 
ments, to which the bar professes to be in deadly hostility, 
have also their pupils and their adepts, to whom the abro- 
gation of the rigid standard of morality will be exceedingly 
welcome and convenient ; and more professions than these 
Essays extend to, might have been treated of in a book, 
much to the edification of many acute and active young 
persons who are at all times training to them. Let it be 
also considered in what a ludicrous predicament the theory 
of morals would be placed in a family in which there were 
several sons, educating for different professions, under the 
immediate care of their parents ; a case which our author 
regards as very desirable. One son, let it be supposed, is 
to be a lawyer, another a clergyman. The young clergyman 
receives in the sight and hearing of his brother, daily lessons 
on the indispensable duty of maintaining an ardent love of 
truth and an honest, candid simplicity that admits every 



! 



CLERICAL EDUCATION. 385 

argument in its proper force, and would feel it a violation of 
principle — not of reason or decorum only, but of conscien- 
tious principle — to defend error through obstinacy or the 
desire of victory. But the very spirit and conduct which 
the young clergyman is taught to regard as immoral, is by 
the same instructors, on the same day, in the same room, 
encouraged in the young lawyer by a tolerance, which, if he 
acquits himself cleverly, will approach to applause. "What 
are these virtuous instructors to do, or say, when the young 
lawyer laughs aloud at his brother while undergoing their 
moral lecture, and at them for making it ; or when their 
clerical pupil asks them, with ingenuous distress, what they 
really mean by the terms duty, morality, virtuous principle, 
and the like, seeing the pretended moral principle and its 
direct reverse are thus to be regarded as equally right ? We 
can conceive no expedient for these worthy parents to adopt 
in such a case, but to dismiss at once the hypocrisy of an 
illusory diction, and frankly avow, that, as to the point of 
virtue and matter of conscience involved in the honesty 
enjoined on the clergyman, that is all a joke ; but that the 
plain thing is, there is a professional propriety in the cler- 
gyman's cultivating the quality in question, and a profes- 
sional convenience in the lawyer's despising it. 

The remainder of the essay briefly traces, without effecting 
any novelty of system, the proper course of a young clergy- 
man's studies, previously to his going to college, at college, 
and in his subsequent years. The French and English 
modes of eloquence are contrasted, and the latter, for very 
good reasons, preferred. There are some plain and useful 
suggestions of methods of discipline, by which the preacher 
should accomplish himself as a good speaker. He is 
advised to study the pulpit manners of living preachers, 
not for so poor and absurd an object as the imitation of 
even the best of them, but to perfect his abstract idea of 
excellence by means of a consideration of various examples, 
better and worse,— for he recommends the student to hear 
some of the worst specimens as well as the best. Among 
the vilest sort, he says, " should be classed all those clerical 
coxcombs, who show that they are more intent on the nice 
management of a cambric handkerchief, or the display of 

c c 



386 EDUCATION IN RELATION TO RELIGION. 

a brilliant ring on their white hands, than upon^the truths 
of the gospel, or the salvation of their auditors.' ' 

He concludes by recommending the clergyman to acquaint 
himself accurately with the various modes of faith, worship, 
and religious establishment, in our own and other countries, 
in order to keep himself clear of bigotry and party violence, 
and to become qualified to act the part of a wise and bene- 
volent moderator among others. < 

On taking leave of the clerical profession, the author 
appears to take a final and willing leave of religion. The 
word is admitted, indeed, two or three times, in enumerating 
the requisite instructions for the other professions ; it is 
introduced just as a notice that the subject has been duly 
disposed of already ; and the writer appears glad to be 
thus left at full liberty to sketch the whole scheme ot the 
education of the soldier, physician, lawyer, and statesman, 
without formally including this ungracious article, buch a 
thing as a solemn regard to the Governor of the world and 
a rigorous adherence to his revealed laws, was deemed too 
trifling or too fanatical to be brought forward in each ot 
the delineations of professional excellence, as a purifier ot 
motives, as a prescriber of ends, and a regulator m the 
choice of means in every department of human action. It 
was not that the author was anxious to avoid repetition ; 
for most of the other requisite branches of instruction and 
qualities of character which have been illustrated and 
enforced as indispensable or highly useful for one profession 
are again fully insisted on with reference to another, and 
still another. Nor do we complain of this repetition. The 
value of what may be called a philosophical memory, ot a 
most carefully cultivated reasoning faculty, of intellectual 
and moral self-command, of a certain portion of learning and 
science, and of extensive knowledge of mankind, is obviously 
so great to all persons employed in important concerns, that 
the reader is willing and pleased to have them brought again 
in view, in order to its being shown m what manner they 
are indispensable in the education of the physician or the 
lawyer, or the statesman. But while such ample liberty is 
taken of enlarging again, in the successive divisions ot the 
work, on several qualifications which are not merely profes- 
sional, but are indispensable to professional men, just 



HILITABV. AND NAVAL EDUCATION. 387 

because they are indispensblae to all enlightened and useful 
men, we own we cannot help receiving an unfavourable 
impression of the moral quality of a work, from seeing so 
eareful an omission (except in the part where it was unavoid- 
ably to be noticed as professionally necessary) of that one 
qualification of human character, which is the only secure 
basis of any virtue, and gives the purest lustre to every 
talent. 

The third essay is on Military and Naval Education ? In 
undertaking to sketch the proper education for the several 
professions, Mr. Edgeworth has omitted, apparently by 
design, to premise any observations tending to fix the moral 
estimate of each, for the assistance of those persons who 
are compelled to consult a delicate conscience in choosing 
the professions of their children. A few observations of this 
kind might not have been out of place, at the beginning of 
an essay on the method of making a soldier ; for such a 
conscience may perversely raise a very strong question, 
whether it be right to destine a child to the occupation of 
slaying men ; and, happily, for our country (or unhappily, 
as we believe it will be more according to the current moral 
principles of the times to say), there are a certain proportion 
of people who cannot dismiss in practice their convictions of 
right, even though flattered by a presumption that their 
names, in their sons, might attain the splendour of military 
fame. "We cannot be unaware how much offence there are 
persons capable of taking, at a plain description of war in 
the terms expressive of its chief operation. And it is, to be 
sure, very hard that what has been bedizened with the most 
magnificent epithets of every language, what has procured 
for so many men the idolatry of the world, what has crowned 
them with royal, imperial, and, according to the usual slang 
on the subject, "immortal" honours, what has obtained 
their apotheosis in history and poetry, — it is hard and 
vexatious that this same adored maker of emperors and 
demi-gods, should be reducible in literal truth of description 
to " the occupation of slaying men," and should therefore 
hold its honours at the mercy of the first gleam of sober 
sense that shall break upon mankind. But, however 
whimsical it may appear to recollect that the great business 
of war is slaughter, however deplorably low-minded it may 

c c2 



388 EDUCATION IN BELATION TO EELIGION. 

appear to regard all the splendour of fame with which war 
has been blazoned, much in the same light as the gilding of 
that hideous idol to which the Mexicans sacrificed their 
human hecatombs, however foolish it may be thought to 
make a difficulty of consenting to merge the eternal laws of 
morality in the policy of states, and however presumptuous 
it may seem to condemn. so many privileged, and eloquent, 
and learned, and reverend personages, as any and every war 
is sure to find its advocates, — it remains an obstinate fact, 
that there are some men of such perverted perceptions as 
to apprehend that revenge, rage, and cruelty, blood and fire, 
wounds, shrieks, groans, and death, with an infinite accom- 
paniment of collateral crimes and miseries, are the elements 
of what so many besotted mortals have worshipped in every 
age under the title of " glorious war." To be told that this 
is just the commonplace with which dull and envious 
moralists have always railed against martial glory, will no' ; 
in the slightest degree modify their apprehension of a plain 
matter of fact. What signifies it whether moralists are dull, 
envious, and dealers in commonplace, or not ? No matter 
who says it, nor from what motive ; the fact is, that war 
consists of the components here enumerated, and is therefore 
an infernal abomination, when maintained for any object, 
and according to any measures, not honestly within the 
absolute necessities of defence. In these justifying neces- 
sities, we include the peril to which another nation with 
perfect innocence on its part may be exposed, from the 
injustice of a third power ; as in the instance of the Dutch 
people, saved by Elizabeth from being destroyed by Spain. 
Now it needs not be said that wars, justifiable, on either 
side, on the pure principles of lawful defence, are the rarest 
things in history. Whole centuries, all over darkened with 
the horrors of war, may be explored from beginning to end, 
without perhaps finding two instances in which any one 
belligerent power can be pronounced to have adopted every 
precaution, and made every effort, concession, and sacrifice, 
required by Christian morality, in order to avoid war ; to 
have entered into it with extreme reluctance ; to have 
entertained while prosecuting it, an ardent desire for peace, 
promptly seizing every occasion and expedient of conci- 
liation; to have sincerely forsworn all ambitious objects, 



, 



THE MOEALITT OF WAB. 389 

to have spurned the foolish pride of not being the first to 
offer peace, and to have ended the war the very first hour 
that it was found that candid negotiation and moderate 
terms, would be acceded to by the enemy. It is certain, at 
least, that the military history of this country is not the 
record where such examples are to be sought. But it may 
be presumed, we suppose, that those parents whose moral 
principles are to be of any use to their children, will abhor 
the idea to their sons being employed in any war that has 
not the grounds of justification here enumerated. But then, 
in order to their feeling themselves warranted to educate 
those sons for the business of war, they must have a firm 
assurance that the moral principles of their nation, or its 
government, are about to become so transformed, that there 
shall be, during the lives of their children, no war which 
shall not, on the part of their country, stand within the 
justifying conditions that we have specified. And let a con- 
scientious parent seriously reflect, whether there be any 
good cause for entertaining such an assurance. But, unless 
he has such an assurance, he gives his son to be shaped and 
finished, like a sword or a bayonet in a Birmingham manu- 
factory, to be employed in deeds of slaughter, righteous or 
iniquitous, just as may be determined by the persons in 
power, to whom he must sell his services unconditionally, 
and whose determinations may probably enough be guided by 
the most depraved principles ; while there is this unfortunate 
difference between the youth and the sword, that the youth 
who is thus becoming an instrument of slaughter, cannot 
still be divested of the accountableness of a moral agent. 
A melancholy case ! that the father should have cause to 
deplore the impossibility of his son's being at once an accom- 
plished soldier and an idiot. If a time shall come when the 
nation and its government shall manifest, with any thing 
like a sufficient security for permanently manifesting, half 
as much moderation as they have shown pride and ambition, 
and half as decided an attachment to peace as they have 
shown violent passion for war, during the last half-century, 
then the parent's conscientious scruples may be turned 
from the general question of the morality of the military 
employment, to the particular considerations of its probable 
influence on his son's character, and its dangers to his life ; 



390 EDUCATION IN RELATION TO RELIGION. 

that is to say, if all such considerations, and the profession 
itself, are not by that time set aside by the final cessation of 
war. In the mean time, conscientious parents may do well 
to resign the ambition of training sons to martial glory, to 
those fathers — a plentiful complement — who will laugh at 
the sickly conscience which scruples to devote a youth to 
the profession of war, on the ground that the wars in which 
he shall be employed may be iniquitous. 

"We are not sure that Mr. Edgeworth would not join in 
this laugh, as he makes very light of whatever morality has 
to do in the concern. He contemplates with the utmost 
coolness, not only the possibility that his young hero may 
be employed in an unjust cause (in which case he is here 
recommended to take no responsibility on his conscience, 
but mind his proper business of killing and slaying), but the 
certainty that the prescribed education for a military life 
will powerfully tend to promote and perpetuate a state of 
war. He says, — 

" After quitting his academy, it is scarcely possible that a 
young man, who has acquired all the knowledge, and caught all 
the enthusiasm necessary for his profession, should not ardently 
wish for war, that he may have opportunities of distinguishing 
himself. Martial enthusiasm and a humane philosophical love 
of peace are incompatible ; therefore, military pupils should not 
be made philosophers, or they cease to be soldiers, and how then 
can we expect to be defended." — P. 194. 

Thus it is plainly asserted, that a rightly conducted 
military education will inspire its subjects with an ardent 
passion against the nation's being at peace. Now let it be 
considered, that of the numerous youths to be thus educated, 
and therefore inspired with this passion, a considerable pro- 
portion will be sons of the nobility, who form a branch of 
the legislature, a kind of permanent council to the king ; 
that another large proportion are from the families of the 
prodigious number of executive functionaries of the state, 
through all their gradations; and that a very numerous 
supply is from the families of wealth and influence through- 
out the country, whose direct or collateral relations have 
seats in the House of Commons : let all this be reflected on 
but five minutes ; let it be considered that the younger sons 



THE MOEALITT OF WAR. 391 

of the nobility, when thus educated, must be provided for at 
all events, even if they were not burning for martial enter- 
prise ; that in the descending ranks of family and wealth, 
who send their representatives to the House of Commons, 
the modern habits of living have created certain necessities 
very powerfully tending to influence the fathers of these 
young heroes to promote in that house, in person, or by 
their friends, such national schemes as will furnish employ- 
ment for their sons ; and that the generous ambition, as it 
will be called, of these high-spirited young men, always 
therefore the favourites and idols of their families and con- 
nexions, will probably have no little direct influence on the 
volitions of their parliamentary relatives. Let any man 
think of all this influence, acting in reinforcement of that 
horror of peace which may prevail as much in the govern- 
ment and a great part of the nation another half century, 
as it has prevailed during the last, and say whether there 
can be any better security for a constant national disposition 
to a state of war. The nation is to stand, therefore, in this 
desirable predicament ; that the grand expedient for defend- 
ing it against enemies, is to be most exactly calculated to 
set it continually on finding and making enemies. 

Such are the natural effects of our author's scheme of 
military education, according to his own statement of its 
tendency, on which statement he appears not to have the 
slightest idea that any one can be so wrong-headed as to 
found an objection to such an education. It is no business of 
ours, in this place, to enter into a dull and useless discussion 
whether it be practicable to devise a scheme of education which 
should qualify young men to be efficient soldiers, whenever 
duty should appesr to summon them to act in that capacity, 
and should equally, at the same time, cultivate all the moral 
principles that would inspire a detestation of war. But it is 
our business, as Christian censors and monitor to say, that, 
if this is not practicable, no parent can educate his son for 
war, without a complete virtual abjuration of Christianity ; 
as it is obviously impossible for him at once to be faithful 
to the laws of an institution which commands every thing 
gentle, pacific, preventive of strife and suffering, and repres- 
sive of ambition, and deliberately to excite in his son an 
ardent passion for that employment, of which the grand 
elements are fury, anguish, and destruction. The laws of 



392 EDUCATION IN RELATION TO RELIGION. 

this institution are fundamental and absolute, forming the 
primary obligation on all its believers, and reducing all other 
rules of action to find their place as they can, in due sub- 
ordination, — or to find no place at all. ISTo arguments in 
favour of this military passion are to be allowed from such 
topics as national glory, unless it is to be maintained, that 
Christianity has provided for a suspension of its own princi- 
ples, in favour of that pride and ambition generally implied 
in this phrase. And if it has made an exception in favour 
of these, why should it not be equally indulgent to any other 
depraved feelings connected with other kinds of corrupt 
interest ? that is, why has it an existence as a moral autho- 
rity ? It had better not exist at all, if it were an insti- 
tution which enforced gentleness and quietness on mankind, 
just as if to give the more destructive effect to an exception 
sanctioning martial madness to harass and consume them. 
Truly it would deserve all the contempt which such persons 
as our author feel for it, if it were a system maintaining 
itself rigidly obligatory on those whose refined moral sensi- 
bility yields to admit the obligation, but not obligatory on 
those whose fierce passions disdain its control ; that is, a 
thing of which the obligation depends on whether men are 
willing to acknowledge it or not. 

"We have mentioned what is called national glory, as this 
is one of the chief idols which men of war are always required 
to worship, and to which there is hardly anything in the 
whole moral system which they will not be justified, by the 
generality of politicians and moralists in these times, for 
sacrificing. But national defence is Mr. Edgeworth's imme- 
diate plea, in justification of a mode of training which must 
deprave the moral sentiments of a considerable portion of 
our youth : "How can we otherwise," he asks, " expect to 
be defended?" We have already said, in reply to this, 
How can we, at this rate, be ever free from perils, created 
by our own foolish disposition to seize or make occasions 
for war ? But we add another question of still graver 
import, — On the supposition that there is a righteous 
Governor of the world, how can we expect to be defended, 
if we industriously promote, in the minds of a large and the 
most active proportion of our youth, a spirit which he 
abominates, and the national conduct naturally resulting 
from which he has threatened to visit with punishment ? 



OF NATIONAL DE FENCES. 393 

This question, indeed, it must be acknowledged, can per- 
tinently be addressed only to the ''fanatics;" as we have 
had extensive opportunity of observing, that the persons so 
reputed alone show any real practical recognition of a divine 
government in speculating on the policy of states. It is to 
be hoped that all these fanatics will, in consistency with 
their faith in such a government, beware of soliciting the 
demon of martial ambition into the minds of their sons ; 
convinced that no possible combination of circumstances 
under heaven can sanctify a spirit the reverse of their 
religion, and that, as a general law, a state in danger, has 
just so much the greater cause to despair of being defended, 
as it prepares its defence in a spirit careless of divine 
injunctions, and scornful of a reliance on Providence. Till 
the right spirit shall find its way into nations and govern- 
ments, it remains to be seen what that Providence will 
suffer to be effected among them by that valorous ambition 
which Mr. Edgeworth wishes to inflame, and all the glory 
of which — except its success, and its efficacy to annihilate 
national danger — has richly crowned this country during 
the last half-century. 

If the question were still urged, But how can a nation be 
defended ? it may be answered at once, that a nation whose 
piety and justice are approved by heaven (and how is a 
nation of an opposite character to have any security of 
being defended, whatever be its ostensible means ?) such a 
nation may be defended by the divine agency giving efficacy 
to the operation of such numbers, such military apparatus, 
and such resources of science, as the purely defensive spirit 
would always keep partly prepared, and would soon make 
ready for action, in an enlightened nation, conscious of 
having the most valuable possessions to lose. 

Our author's morality appears on the same level, in the 
doctrine that it is not for military men, except those of the 
very highest rank, to form any judgment of their own on 
the right or wrong of the cause in which they are to be 
employed. That is, in the one employment which is the 
most awful on earth, that of inflicting death on human 
beings in the mass, men are not to consider their actions as 
of consequence enough for the cognizance of conscience; 
they may divest themselves of the inconvenience of moral 



394 EDUCATION IF RELATION TO RELIGION. 

accountableness, till they return to the solemn functions of 
buying and selling, and the ordinary proprieties of life. In 
the civil economy of society, the life of an individual is 
regarded as of such importance, that it must not be touched 
without a most grave and punctilious process ; witnesses 
are attested and rigorously examined, juries are sworn and 
charged, laws are explained, learned judges preside, and are 
even allowed by their office to assume in a certain degree 
the character of advocates for the accused ; and should any 
one of all these persons concerned, be proved to have acted 
in the process as a man divested of moral responsibility, his 
character is blasted for ever. But let an ambitious despot, 
or a profligate ministry, only give out the word that we 
must be at war with this or the other nation, — and then a 
man who has no personal complaint against any living thing 
of that nation, who may not be certain that it has com- 
mitted any real injury against his own nation or govern- 
ment, nay, who possibly may be convinced by facts against 
which he eannot shut his eyes, that his own nation or 
government is substantially in the wrong, then this man, 
under the sanction of the word war, may, with a conscience 
entirely unconcerned, immediately go and cut down human 
beings as he would cut down a copse. It is nothing to him 
if the people he is to co-operate in attacking are peaceful, 
free, and happy, and that this very freedom and happiness 
may have been the cause of the war, by exciting the malig- 
nity of the aggressor. The peaceful valleys and hills of 
Switzerland can be no more sacred in his view, than the 
borders of the most arrogant and malicious rival. The 
officers who invaded and subdued that country were, all but 
the commander-in-chief, as virtuously employed as those 
who fell in attempting to defend it. And, admitting that 
the popular resistance in Spain is really an effort of a long- 
degraded people to obtain liberty, the invaders, excepting 
perhaps the marshal-dukes, are as honourably occupied as 
their opponents ; for they are destroying men and desolating 
the country, under the modest forbearance, enjoined by our 
moralist, to arrogate to themselves a right of judging of the 
merits of the cause. And should they receive orders from 
their superiors to perpetrate the barbarities of Herod, they 
have only to obey, and exult in their exemption from moral 









ON DUELLING. 395 

responsibility. The exemption goes this length, and every 
length, or it cannot be proved to exist at all ; for if an 
accountableness is to take place at some point, and the 
man's own judgment is to decide where, he will be com- 
pelled to begin his examination, and therefore to acknow- 
ledge his accountableness, at the very first moral question 
that can be put concerning his employment. 

The young soldier from Mr. Edgeworth's school is not to 
be eagerly set on duelling, but neither is he in all cases to 
decline that honourable practice. " The best character," he 
says, " a young man can establish on going into the army, 
is that of being determined to fight in a proper cause, but 
averse to quarrel for trifles." He strongly recommends 
fencing as a part of an officer's education. 

" It might again revive the custom among gentlemen, of fight- 
ing duels with swords instead of pistols : a custom, which would 
at least diminish the number of duellists, by confining them to 
a certain class in society. Gentlemen would then be in some 
measure protected from the insolence of uneducated temerity, 
and every ill-bred upstart would not find himself upon a footing 
with his superior because he can fire a pistol, or dares to stand 
a shot. If any distinction of ranks is to be supported, if any 
idea of subordination is to be maintained in a country, and 
what nation can exist without these, education must mark the 
boundaries, ^,nd maintain the privileges of the different orders. 
The honour and the life of an officer and a senator, and that of 
a mere idle man of the town, ought not to be put on the same 
level, nor should their differences be adjusted by one and the 
same appeal to the trigger." — P. 152. 

This expedient for preserving so valuable a privilege to 
the better sort, for keeping duels a strictly genteel amuse- 
ment, would prove ineffectual ; for these " idle men of the 
town" would, in spite of their description, be soon stimu- 
lated to qualify themselves in the art, on which they found 
their equality with the " officers and senators " was to 
depend ; and some of them, of the true bravo species, would 
soon acquire the power to overawe their pretended supe- 
riors. Mr. Edgeworth might know that some of these men 
of the town practise shooting at a mark, expressly in prepa- 
ration for " affairs of honour," with as much assiduity as 
would finish them in the use of the sword. Under the 



396 



EDUCATION IF BELATIOtf TO BELIGIOtf. 



appearance of idle men of the town, there will always, in 
the metropolis, be a class of keen desperate adventurers by- 
profession, who regard what Mr. Edgeworth may call " their 
superiors," as their game ; and so long as gentlemen of the 
senatorian, or whatever other dignified sort, choose, in defi- 
ance of morality and law, to maintain the practice of 
"appeal" to either the "trigger" or the sword, they will 
deservedly be at the mercy of the more unerring pistols or 
swords of these formidable men. As to the supposed higher 
value of the " honour and the life of the ofiicer or senator," 
surely the man is the best judge himself what the one or 
the other is worth ; he is not obliged to appraise them in a 
pistolling match with " every ill-bred upstart, or idle man 
of the town," and, if he chooses to do it, it is of course 
because he judges they are things fit for such a traffic. 
And truly, whatever price they might have borne before, he 
cannot well estimate them too meanly by the time that he 
has measured his ground with his worthless antagonist, 
since community in crime is the grand equalizer in degrada- 
tion. By the time he has consented to place himself in 
that situation, his "honour," at any rate, is hardly worth 
the trouble of a preference of one weapon to another, and 
his " life" is worth — mentioning in to-morrow's newspaper 
as a thing that went out in a gentlemanly style. In the 
name, then, of that liberty, so much favoured by the govern- 
ment and tribunals of this Christian country, of violating in 
this point morality and law, let not the man be forced to 
take the pains of learning au additional art in order to dis- 
pose of his couple of trifles, " honour and life," which can 
be disposed of with less trouble in the mode now in fashion. 
The reader will be somewhat surprised to find that this 
determination to fight duels on all proper occasions, is to 
coalesce, in the young soldier's mind, with a religion which 
it shall be worth his while to maintain with an equal 
constancy of determination. We are not certain, even, 
whether the same weapons are not, in the last resort, to be 
employed ; since " all interference with his religious senti- 
ments, whether by ridicule or remonstrance," is represented 
as such "an infringement of his rights and his inde- 
pendence," as we should suppose he will be bound to resent 
with lead or steel. 



MILITAET EELIGION. 397 

" As a young officer will early mix with varieties of dissipated 
company, his religious principles should not trust for their 
defence to any of those outworks which wit can demolish ; he 
should not be early taught to be scrupulous or strict in the 
observance of trifling forms ; his important duties, and his belief 
in the essential tenets of his religion, should not rest upon these 
slight fouudations, lest, if they be overthrown, the whole super- 
structure should fall. When his young companions perceive 
that he is not precise or punctilious, but sincere and firm in his 
belief ; when they see that he avoids all controversy with others, 
and considers all interference with his own religious sentiments, 
whether by ridicule or remonstrance, as an infringement of his 
right sand his independence, he will not only be left unmolested 
in his tenets, but he will command general respect. It is of the 
utmost importance that the early religious impressions made on 
the mind of a soldier should not be of a gloomy or dispiriting 
sort ; they should be connected with hope, not with fear, or they 
will tend to make him cowardly instead of brave. Those who 
believe that they are secure of happiness hereafter if to the best 
of their power they live and die doing their duty, will certainly 
meet danger, and if necessary death, with more courage than 
they can ever do who are oppressed and intimidated by super- 
stitious doubts and horrors, terrors which degrade man, and 
which are inconsistent with all ideas of the goodness and 
beneficence of God."— P. 143. 

It should seem to bo conveyed in this piece of instruction, 
that it is in some certain degree at the option of religions 
teachers what they shall inculcate as religion; and that, 
therefore, in their religious instructions to their military 
pupils, they can considerably accommodate to the purpose 
of producing bravery. We may also learn, that a religion 
which involves " terrors," needs not be believed by any of 
us, soldiers, authors, or critics, any testimony to the con- 
trary in the Bible notwithstanding. As to the phrase, " if 
they live and die doing their duty," nothing can be more 
indefinite, or even equivocal ; for, according to our author, 
a military man may die doing his duty though he dies in a 
duel, or, as far as we see, if he dies in the act of sacking a 
harmless town, which some atrocious tyrant, or tyrant's 
tool, has sworn to annihilate. 

After so much more than enough on the moral complexion 
of this long essay on military education, there needs but 
very few words on its other qualities. In common with the 



Si)8 EDUCATION IN RELATION TO RELIGION. 

others, it has a certain defect, very sensibly felt by a reader 
of indifferent memory ; that of not prominently marking the 
several stages and topics in the scheme. But this perhaps 
could not have been remedied by any other means than a 
formal division into a number of sections with distinct titles 
and arguments. The multifarious assemblage of precepts 
and illustrations includes, we should suppose, almost all the 
expedients most conducive to excite the spirit and finish the 
accomplishments of a soldier. Many directions are given 
for preparing the young hero from his infancy for the toils 
and privations of his future service. 

The discipline of stripes must never be applied to him, of 
whatever perversity or mischief he may be guilty. Every 
thing must be done by an appeal to his pride, which passion 
is to be promoted and stimulated in every possible way, as 
the sovereign virtue of the military character ; nor is any 
prescription given for transmuting it into the opposite 
Christian virtue just at the extreme moment when he is 
finally laying down his arms, if he should then be apprehen- 
sive that this military character may be an uncouth garb in 
which to appear in the other world. The proper discipline 
for creating courage is pointed out ; amusements bearing 
some relation to the operation of war are suggested ; it is 
advised that the boy be induced to employ himself sometimes 
in familiar practical mechanics ; be early made master of the 
terms and elements of mathematics ; be carefully trained to 
an accurate use of his eyes, in order to judge of distances 
and relative magnitudes ; be taught drawing ; learn some of 
the modern languages, but not expend much of his time on 
Latin and Greek. He is to be made conversant with the 
lives of warriors, and even the stories of chivalry. But the 
book of mightiest inspiration is the Iliad, of which it was 
indispensably necessary to mention yet once more, that it 
sent "Macedonia's madman and the Swede," to draw 
glorious lines of blood and devastation across certain 
portions of the surface of the earth, beckoned on by the 
Homeric ghost of Achilles. The character of this amiable 
hero has been "fated," it seems, like those of the Christian 
apostles and martyrs, to meet with detractors among the 
base-minded moderns. 

" Some modern writers have been pleased to call Achilles a 



MEDICAL AOT) LEGAL EDUCATION, ETC. 399 

mad butcher, wading in carnage ; but all our love for the arts of 
peace, and all our respect for that humane philosophy which 
proscribes war, cannot induce us to join in such brutal abuse, 
such unseemly degradation of the greatest military hero upon 
poetic record ;" 

and there follows a portion of useful composition on the 
"heroic beauties in his character;" in answer to all which 
it is sufficient to ask, But was he not, after all, " a mad 
butcher wading in carnage?" There are many excellent 
observations on an officer's conduct in war, on the proper 
combination, while he is a subaltern, of subordination with 
independence of character, on presence of mind, on the 
mode of attaching soldiers and inspiring them with confi- 
dence, and on that vigour of , good sense which, disdaining .to 
be confined to the principles of any school of war, can 
adapt every operation pointedly to the immediate state of 
the circumstances. The whole Essay is enlivened by 
numerous historical examples, selected in general with 
great judgment and felicity. 

The remaining Essays are on the education for the 
Medical Profession, for the duties of Country Gentlemen, 
for the profession of the Law, and for Public Life, with a 
short concluding chapter on the education of a Prince. 
They involve such a multiplicity of particulars, as to be 
beyond the power of analysis, had we any room left to 
attempt it. Nor is there any bold novelty of general 
principles that can be stated as pervading the whole mass ; 
unless, indeed, we may cite as a novelty the author's detes- 
tation of the political profligacy and low intrigues of what 
are called public men. This appears in many parts of the 
book, and is conspicuously displayed in the Essay on the 
education of men intended for Public Life. And it is quite 
time it should be displayed by every honest man, since the 
public mind habitually leans to a forgetfulness or a toler- 
ance of those vices of public men to which the public 
interests are made a sacrifice. Thus far is well ; but when 
our author proceeds confidently to remedy all these evils by 
means of the inculcation of pride, honour, and magnanimity 
(which is only another name for pride, when it is found in 
such company), we cannot help wondering through what 
preternatural splitting of his faculties into a very intelligent 



400 SANSCEIT LITEEATUEE. 

part and a very whimsical one, it has happened that the 
same individual has been in many directions an excellent 
observer and thinker, but in others a deplorable visionary. 



SANSCEIT LITEEATUEE. 

The Ramayuna of Valmeeki, translated from the Sungskrit, with 
explanatory Notes. By William Carey and Joshua Marsh- 
man. Vol. I. containing the first Book. 8vo. 1810. 

Scaecelt so much as a third part of a century has passed 
away, since a large proportion of the wise men of us here 
in Europe were found looking, with a devout and almost 
trembling reverence, towards the awful mysteries of Sanscrit 
literature. The idea which had taken possession of our 
imagination, was that of a most solemn temple, placed far 
within the shades of a grove of unmeasured extent and 
unknown antiquity, in the solitude and twilight of which 
now and then a daring adventurer had descried at a dis- 
tance, and contemplated with religious emotion, though but 
obscurely and partially disclosed to his view, some of its 
stupendous proportions and columns : while it was doubt- 
fully reported that some one or two still more hardy intruders 
into those shades had ventured into the immediate precincts, 
had even presumed within the threshold, and glanced into 
the awful gloom of the interior. It was not pretended to 
be known how long this one or more pretended aspirants 
had dared to continue there, nor what they had been per- 
mitted with impunity to behold ; and it may for ever remain 
equally unknown whether it was from what they had the 
temerity to reveal, or whether it was by any other commu- 
nication that it had come to be understood among us, that 
the presence of something divine was perceptible in that 
dread mansion ; and that oracles of a deeper philosophy 
and a sublimer theology than had ever been vouchsafed in 
explanation of matter and spirit, of creatures and creators, 
in our part of the world, there disclosed the very last 
abstraction of truth ; that there were heard such strains of 
celestial poetry as would put our inspired or uninspired 



EREOKEOTTS ESTIMATE OF ITS VAXT7E. 401 

bards to silence ; and that a tablet of authentic history 
might there be seen which would unfold to us a retrospect 
of enormous periods of human existence and agency, 
anterior to the little modern story about Adam and Eve, 
and satisfy us that our eras Domini and Mundi measure 
time on a scale fit enough, perhaps, for the chronicling of 
wine and strong beer. As to the infinity of idols, not denied 
to be the occupants of that awful fane, the language of 
contrast and solemnity but very slightly modified its tone. 
It was assumed that the measure of our liberality in religion 
ought to be estimated according to our willingness to admit 
a variety of claims to divine honours, especially in favour of 
gods who had splendid religious establishments among an 
enlightened and happy people (as they were asserted to have 
been), in an age when we were little better than naked 
wild beasts, roaming in the woods. The persons making 
this representation did, besides, very justly guess, that in 
proportion to our disregard of the one exclusive object of 
religious homage would be our capacity of admitting and 
worshipping a million. Our liberality proved not to have 
been overrated ; we were found capable of entertaining the 
representations which demanded its exercise towards the 
countless legion of oriental gods ; philosophers and scholars 
conceded to their claims, poets began the direct formalities 
of worship by writing hymns to them ; even ministers of 
" our" religion spoke of them in reverential terms ; and our 
Christian government has given a most marked attention to 
the encouragement of their worship in the East. 

Some of the earlier of these religious demonstrations 
were at least premature ; as being made previously to the 
authenticated disclosure of any part of what was enshrined 
within the holy language, and even while it seemed yet 
doubtful whether we were not doomed all to die without the 
benefit of that revelation. "We had heard of Vedas and 
Puranas, and perhaps of Menu, and Vyasa, and Valmic ; 
and there was no form of reverential sentiment within the 
"reaches of our souls" which we had not associated with 
these terms and names ; but it had been preferable not to 
have heard of them at all, and not to have associated these 
sentiments with them, than to be continually reminded by 
them of the impenetrable darkness which veiled from us 

D D 



402 



SAtfSCKIT LITEEATTTEE. 



those treasures of wisdom, the possession of which, could 
they be imparted to us, would deliver us from that painful 
sense of limited faculties and scanty knowledge, under 
which we have hitherto been left to suffer by the feeble 
light of the Bible, of all moral science and literature, and of 
the Grecian and Boman philosophy and poetry, even not- 
withstanding the advantageous circumstance of their being 
pagan. 

When at length some hope began to arise that in part 
the disclosure would soon be made, the eagerness and the 
seriousness of expectation were not less than would be felt 
by a man that should have been brought up and confined 
from his infancy in an apartment which admitted no direct 
light from the sky, and should at last be assured that 
to-morrow morning he should be taken out to see the sun 
rise. 

At length the appointed and auspicious hour arrived ; 
and the Greeta appeared on our horizon as the morning-star. 
In a moment, and in the act of awkwardly imitating Brah- 
minical gestures, we fell prostrate. But, retaining some 
small remainder of the curiosity and courage characteristic 
of Englishmen, we presumed, even in this devout posture, 
to gaze. The effect was very rueful and very comical. For, 
after gazing a short time, many of the worshippers began to 
suspect that, if we may be permitted to use a very low word 
in connexion with what should have been a very high subject, 
they had been humbugged ; and that what had been 
announced to them as the celestial precursor of a grand 
luminary, might perchance prove to be no other than the 
fire of a sort of sacred brick-kiln, kindled for the purpose of 
giving an apotheosis to divers lumps and shapes of clay, 
which would soon demand a still more prostrate obeisance 
of these devotees. In plain terms, when those pretenders 
to superior reason and intellectual freedom, — who had with 
notable prudence given out that there was cause to believe a 
more refined wisdom and a more enchanting eloquence are 
inscribed in the ancient volumes of the Brahminical 
sanctuary, than any thing that ever emanated from the 
strongest minds of Europe, or has been displayed in the 
Jewish and Christian revelations, — obtained at last a trans- 
lation, by a scholar whose ability and accuracy no one could 



THE GEETA. 403 

venture to question, of what was confessedly the most 
revered part of one of the most revered works in that sanc- 
tuary, they were grievously confounded. And not small was 
the mortification of those who had suffered themselves to 
admit in any degree the possible truth of such a representa- 
tion ; while those who had always despised the fiction, had 
now the opportunity of kindly soothing the vexation of its 
propagators and believers, by requesting their assistance for 
the more devout and profitable contemplation of the new 
light, the vision of the true theology and philosophy, the 
thunder and lightnings of ardent and sublime poetry. 
Perhaps a very few attempted to protect themselves by a 
manful effort of effrontery, stoutly asserting that there was 
a profound philosophy, and what not, discoverable in the 
production. But the half-dozen (if there were so many, 
fools or hypocrites for Crishna's sake), could hardly obtain 
notice enough to be even despised, amidst the general and 
irresistible conviction, that, however thick the darkness in 
which we may have been left, by the writings of prophets 
and apostles, or (still more unaccountably and haplessly) by 
the greatest efforts of uninspired genius, it is not to the 
Sanscrit literature we are any longer to look for the intel- 
lectual day-spring, — if the poor, tenebrious glimmer of the 
Greeta be a fair specimen of the Indian lights. For, readers 
of the most ordinary sense, and even had they been so 
devoutly prepossessed with the sanctity of the book as to 
perform ablutions and chant a litany in plain grammatical 
English to the Hindoo Triad, before presuming to open it, 
were soon forced to perceive that it bore no one trace of 
what we in Europe can acknowledge as a strong philosophic 
mind ; that the writer was incapable of elucidating any one 
thing in heaven or earth ; that moon-light in a November 
fog is too flattering a comparison ; that what purports to be 
of the nature of philosophy and theology is for the most 
part an utterly inane mysticism, where the reader, while 
trying bard to make it palpable to his thinking faculty, finds 
every moment the dim incipient shapes of thought, which 
seem attempting to rise in his mind, dissipated in perfect 
vacancy, except where sometimes this mysticism comes to an 
intelligible notion, in the form of a bouncing absurdity or 
despicable puerility ; that the whole exhibition seems to be 

DD 2 



404 SANSCRIT LITERATURE. 

an attempt to amalgamate the lowest fooleries of superstition 
with certain abstract principles of what is called natural 
theology, most feebly and remittingly apprehended ; that the 
supreme rule of morality is to annihilate the motives to 
action ; and finally, that what is to be taken for the poetical 
beauty of the work, consists in exactly those qualities which 
could not have entered into the composition, but through 
the writers being destitute of a firm and disciplined 
intellect. 

But lest there should have remained a possibility, after 
the importation of this sample, that the distressed philoso- 
phic inquirers of Europe should still indulge some lingering 
hope of obtaining, from the sacred literature of India, the 
theological and moral illumination vainly sought from the 
Bible — and so should be losing the precious time in which 
deputations might be sent to try to acquire it from the 
sages of Caffraria, New Zealand, or the Copper Mine Eiver 
— further translations soon were to be made from the cyclo- 
paedia of the gods. It was impossible for Sir "William Jones 
to be long in India without contriving to get into their 
library, by means natural or magical, by an entrance terrene, 
aerial, or subterraneous. He got in accordingly, and through 
connivance of one of their priests, who " requested most 
earnestly that his name might be concealed," stole nothing 
less than the Dherma Sastra, the Institutes of Menu; which 
not long after, in an English shape, arrived on our shores. 
And now or never was the chance of ascending into the sky 
of wisdom, by means of the Brahminical Jacob' s-ladder. 
Eor here we might learn about the divine egg, which Brahma 
came out of, splitting it in halves, the one of which became 
the heavens, and the other the earth ; how the said Brahma 
alternately works and takes a nap, the one in what is 
accounted his day, and the other in his night, each of them 
comprising the space of several thousand millions of our 
years ; how men, of four distinct orders, sprang from four 
localities of his person ; and how he contrived a much more 
singular mode of origination for a superior and second-rate 
divine sort of beings, one of the foremost of whom was 
Menu, who pretends to have taken on himself no little of 
the business of the creation. In this sacred volume might 
be seen the full evidence of the more than half divine 



INSTITUTES OF MENU. 405 

qualities, powers, and prerogatives, innate in one class of 
human creatures, and of the essential, unchangeable vileness 
of another ; together with the thousands of divinely autho- 
rized regulations, according to which the former are even 
bound in duty to trample on the latter. This venerable 
document might help to purify our standard of excellence, 
by celebrating, as of the highest religious merit, a multitude 
of things compatible with the greatest moral depravity. 
There the benefit and delight of worshipping an innumera- 
ble crew of gods, might be seen, in a ritual inexpressibly 
silly except where filthy or cruel, and not to be matched for 
complex multiplicity by all the tracks of noxious and loath- 
some reptiles at this hour crawling and wriggling in the 
purlieus of all the pagodas in Hindostan. It could not but 
be a very dignified and philosophic thing, to prefer the 
thousand-fold ceremonial about eating rice, to the Christian 
morality ; and to wish the commutation of rational repent- 
ance, for propitiatory exercises in cow-dung. And our 
inquisitiveness concerning a future state, which could find 
so little for rational belief or sublime and awful speculation 
in the Christian views of another life, might satisfy its 
utmost demands for evidence and magnificence now at last, 
on obtaining a revelation which promises to the eminently 
good (that is, those that have been the most obstinate in 
useless austerities), a final beatific absorption amounting to 
an extinction of individual consciousness : and predicting to 
the rest a long succession of births, in the course of which 
the souls of the wicked have a chance of finding themselves 
lodged in the forms of all sorts of reptiles and vermin, and 
even of sprouting in weeds from the dung-hill. 

The admirable translator seemed to labour under a consi- 
derable, and, in some degree, ludicrous perplexity, where- 
abouts, on the scale of wisdom and sanctity, to fix the place 
of the Indian demi-god, prophet, and lawgiver. He had 
gone to the East with an imagination on fire at the idea of 
those intellectual wonders, which even he, surpassingly illu- 
minated as he was, had to a certain extent suffered himself 
to believe the Sanscrit had guarded within its mysterious 
recesses for so many centuries, to be revealed to a happier 
age. As soon as he dared to hope those recesses might not 
be impregnable to his own literary ardour, he felt much of 



406 SANSCRIT LITERATURE. 

the spirit of the knight-errant, going to rescue the fair 
princess, Truth, from the durance of an unknown language. 
In the very reasonable exultation of finding himself at last 
the master of this language, and thus admitted at once into 
a world combining perfect novelty with extreme antiquity ; 
thus introduced into a region peopled with sages, to whom 
so many delusive associations of thought had conspired to 
give an appearance of almost superhuman venerableness ; 
and thus finding a perfectly new track for ascending far 
towards the primeval periods of the world — it is not, per- 
haps, to be accounted strange, that he could not view with 
altogether undazzled eyes the work which suddenly unfolded 
to himself, and by which he was suddenly unfolding to the 
European world, the whole frame of a system which had 
been the object of ineffectual curiosity and vain conjecture 
and fable ever since the time of Alexander. And, therefore, 
while it was impossible for his dignified understanding not 
to see that he had got into his hands the very quintessence 
of all manner of absurdity, and impossible for his ingenuous- 
ness not to avow this perception in very pointed terms, he 
yet appeared somewhat reluctant to acknowledge, even to 
himself, that the system celebrated for thousands of years, 
as something almost too awful to be profaned by investiga- 
tion, was absolutely nothing but a compost of whatever was 
most despicable, and whatever was most hateful, in pagan- 
ism. It might well be supposed, therefore, that his honest 
acknowledgment of the futility of the metaphysical conceits, 
of the monstrous priestcraft, of the ceremonial silliness, of 
the partially bad morality, and of several other reprobate 
qualities manifest in the work, was not made without some 
reluctance and mortification. And this presumption is 
verified by his evident anxiety to show, as a set-off, certain 
other qualities alleged to be prominently distinguishable in 
the Institutes, and which nothing but an imagination, not 
yet effectually cured of the oriental fever, could have allowed 
to be described in such terms as the following : " never- 
theless, a spirit of sublime devotion," (devotion to what ?) 
" of benevolence to mankind," (when a very large propor- 
tion of the work, probably much more than half, is employed, 
directly or indirectly, in adjusting and fixing, in a complete 
system, the unparalleled iniquity of the distinction of 



THE INSTITUTES OE MEND". 407 

castes, and the most arrogant and oppressive claims of the 
Brahmins !) " and of amiable tenderness to all sentient 
creatures, pervades the whole work : the style of it has a 
certain austere majesty, that sounds like the language of 
legislation, and extorts a respectful awe ; the sentiments of 
independence on all beings but God, and the harsh admoni- 
tions, even to kings, are truly noble." (Preface, p. xv.) Per- 
haps it had been as well for this incomparable scholar and 
estimable man, to have imitated, on this occasion, the pru- 
dence of the first invader of Sanscrit, Mr. Wilkins, who, in 
his preface to the G-eeta, stated, with demure and exemplary 
gravity, that in the estimation of the Brahmins it is the 
sacred repository of the sublimest doctrines and mysteries, 
and ventured a conjecture at the design of its author; but 
avoided committing himself in any estimate of its merits, 
and slyly threw on the collective Christian wise-men of 
Europe the responsibility of deciding for or against the 
divine Brahminical revelation. 

The hopes which the appearance of the G-eeta had but 
too desperately blighted, were utterly death-smitten and 
shrivelled up by the Institutes ; since this latter greater 
work not only had its own due proportion of all that is 
abhorrent to reason and disgusting to taste, but, as con- 
stituting or illustrating the grand basis of the religious 
economy, it necessarily certified us of what must be, sub- 
stantially, the quality of the whole mass of sacred rubbish 
in the repository of Benares. Such then was the end and 
the reward of the pious faith and hope, with which our 
benighted spirits had so long been looking towards the 
expected Brahminical revelations. "We were now, for the 
most part, quite content to forego the privilege of reading 
any more of their law and their prophets. But our Eastern 
scholars, — whether it is in order to convince us that our 
despondency has been premature ; or to avenge the rejected 
gods by plaguing us ; or whether a latent zeal for Christi- 
anity (how little suspected !), was seeking to drive us into 
it by an aggravated impetus of recoil ; or whether, more 
probably, it was considered that, as our government has 
taken the heathen worship under direct and special patron- 
age, it was but a point of consistency to promote the study 
of the books which give the pattern and celebrate the 



408 SANSCEIT LTTEEATUEE. 

objects of that worship ; — whatever has been the design, 
those scholars have, in spite of all our chagrin, and our 
mutters and murmurs of " OJie! jam satis est," continued, 
through the " Asiatic Eesearches," and other channels, an 
unremitted and merciless persecution of our galled and 
mortified feelings, by their successive abstracts and transla- 
tions from the "holy scriptures" of the Brahmins; and 
we that, not very long since, had been so confidently anti- 
cipating from those sacred works all the delights of the 
richest poetry, and all the elevating sentiments of a most 
sublime religion, are feeling and looking just as any person 
would do, that, having eagerly fallen to devour some sup- 
posed choice dainty which proved on trial to be liberally 
mixed with sand, cinders, and even still less delectable sub- 
stances, should be forced to prolong the repast, while some 
of these ingredients were constantly crashing between his 
teeth. It is perfectly right, however, that this persecution 
should go on to a yet considerably greater length. Let our 
infidels, who could have the assurance and the stupidity to 
affect an air of lightly-dispatching contempt for the autho- 
rity of the Bible and the reason of its believers, while they 
were prompt with a manner and language of reverence and 
affiance at any mention of the Indian Sastras, — let them be 
glutted and gorged to loathing and strangulation with this 
Amrita, this their extolled Hindoo elixir of life. Let them 
enjoy such a regale as Moses gave to the idolatrous Israel- 
ites, and be made to drink, in the vehicle of translations 
from the Sanscrit, the pounded substance of all the Indian 
gods. The Baptist missionaries, who have now begun to 
lend a hand in the preparation of this luxury, have a pecu- 
liar right to administer it, and to witness the repugnant 
grimaces of the recipients. For they have been traduced, 
and hooted, and almost cursed, by all sorts of people, civil 
and military, lay and ecclesiastical, for their bigotry and 
fanaticism, in protesting in a Pagan land against the Pagan 
superstitions. Some refuse substances, put in human shape, 
have raved and bullied about the flagrant injustice com- 
mitted against the heathens, in suffering these men to offer 
to them the Bible as a book worthy to supplant their piles 
of mythological legends. And persons wishing to carry not 
only some appearance of decorum, but even somewhat of 



TRANSLATIONS BY THE MISSIONARIES. 409 

the dignity of philosophy, have professed to wish that the 
narrow-minded zealots for one religion had understanding 
enongh to learn the proper respect for the religious institu- 
tions and scriptures of other nations, especially those of an 
immense people, who can point back to a splendid state of 
their hierarchy and sacred literature in the remotest ages. 
The most ingenious malice, had that been the actuating 
principle of the missionaries, could not have fallen on a 
more effectual expedient of revenge, than that of opening 
in this manner to the English public those " religions" and 
" scriptures," to which these judicious persons have taken 
credit to themselves for extending their liberality. And 
that they may accomplish in the most decisive manner 
whatever good is to be effected by this expedient, we 
earnestly hope their plan will be to translate a moderate 
portion of several of the most celebrated works, rather than 
the whole of any one of them. It would be a most deplor- 
able waste of their labour and time to translate the whole, 
for instance, of the present work, which would probably 
extend to ten such volumes as that before us, "We are per- 
suaded they will be convinced it would be a seriously 
immoral consumption of time also in the readers, sur- 
rounded with such a multitude of better things claiming to 
be read or to be done, to traverse the whole breadth of 
such a continent of absurdity. But indeed it is probable 
no mortal would be found capable of so much perseverance,. 
— except, perhaps, Mr. Twining, and the noted Major, and 
two or three other personages, the remission of whose 
pamphleteering labours against the propagation of Chris- 
tianity in India, may have now left them leisure for so 
congenial an occupation. And in the daily expectation of 
the fulfilment of their predictions, that the permitted con- 
tinuance of the missionaries in India would infallibly cause 
the speedy and total expulsion of the English from that 
country, we think these gentlemen should be peculiarly 
thankful for whatever translated portions of the " holy 
scriptures" can be obtained, before the catastrophe that 
will put an end to the translating. 

In a much too brief advertisement, the translators state 
the occasion and nature of their undertaking. The religion 
and literature, the manners and customs of the Hindoos 



410 SANSCBIT LITEBATTTBE. 

have become the objects of a more general curiosity than in 
any former time, and of these, they observe, " a clear idea 
can be obtained only from a connected perusal of their 
writings." Under this impression, Sir J. Anstruther, the 
late president of the Asiatic Society, had — 

" Indicated a wish to the Society of Missionaries at Seram- 
pore, that they would undertake the work of translating such 
of the Sunskrit writings as a committee, formed from the 
Asiatic Society and the College of Fort-William, should deem 
worthy of the public notice ; and, in consideration of the great 
expense necessarily attending an undertaking of this nature, 
these learned bodies generously came forward with a monthly 
indemnification of 300 rupees. In addition to this, the late 
President of the Asiatic Society, anxious for the advancement 
of Eastern literature, addressed a letter to the different learned 
institutions in Europe soliciting their patronage to this under- 
taking." 

It was proposed to print in the original, accompanied 
by a translation as nearly literal as the genius of the two 
languages would admit, the principal works found in the 
Sanscrit, " particularly those that are held sacred by the 
Hindoos, or those which may be most illustrative of their 
manners, their history, or their religion, including also the 
principal works of science." The committee " made choice 
of the Ramayuna of Valmeeki to be the first in the series 
of translations." " The reverence in which it is held, the 
extent of country through which it is circulated, and the 
interesting view which it exhibits of the religion, the doc- 
trines, the mythology, the current ideas, and the manners 
and customs of the Hindoos, combine to justify their selec- 
tion." 

" The translators have only to observe, that a strict conformity 
to the original has been the object constantly kept in view. To 
this has been sacrificed, not only elegance of expression, but in 
some places perspicuity. A free translation would have been 
an easier task ; but esteeming it their duty to lay before the 
public, not merely the story and machinery, but the imagery, 
the sentiment, and the very idiom of the poem, they have 
attempted this as far as the difference of the two languages 
would permit. And they trust a candid public will excuse 
every defect of phraseology, when it is understood that the 






THE BAMAYUtfA. 411 

object has been to present the original poem in its native sim- 
plicity." 

It may seem a duty of our office to try at something like 
an abstract of this epic story, or rather farrago ; but it is 
such a formless jumble, that we would gladly be excused 
from attempting more than a slight notice of the principal 
matters. There can be no obligation on even the humblest 
critic, to expend much time on what no intelligent creature 
in England above the age of ten (unless the epithet intelli- 
gent could be applied to a certain half-dozen of heathen 
pamphleteers), will read without the utmost contempt. 
Any little value attributable to it, is purely of that inci- 
dental kind which is possessed by all literary relics that, 
however worthless on the score of wisdom or genius, afford 
illustrations of the state of understanding, of the notions 
and the manners, of an ancient and remote people. This 
one claim being admitted and disposed of, there scarcely 
can be found, within the ample scope of our language, any 
terms capable of adequately expressing the despicableness 
of this Indian epic, which has been and continues to be 
regarded as a divine performance by so many millions of 
the people of Asia ; and on the value of even the first little 
section of which its author, at the close of that section, 
makes this solemn deposition : — 

" This relation imparts life, and fame, and strength, to those 
who hear it. "Whoever reads the story of Rama, will be deli- 
vered from all sin. He who constantly peruses this section, in the 
hearing and repetition of which consists holiness, shall, together 
with his whole progeny, be for ever delivered from all pain, 
distress, and sorrow. He who in faith reads this (section) 
amidst a circle of wise men,* will thereby obtain the fruit which 
arises from perusing the whole Eamayuna ; secure to himself 
the blessings connected with all the states of men, and dying be 
absorbed into the deity. A brahman, reading this, becomes 
mighty in learning and eloquence. The descendant of a 
Kshutriya reading it would become a monarch ; a Vishya read- 
ing, will obtain a most prosperous degree of trade ; and a 
Shoodra hearing t it, will become great." — P. 18. 

* " This is one mode in which, with much solemnity, the 
Eamayuna is constantly read." 

t " A Shoodra is not permitted to read it." 



412 



SANSCRIT LITERATURE. 



This gives a very tolerable antepast of the general quality 
of the work, in point of what, in our part of the world, is 
called sense. And, indeed, the grand characteristic distinc- 
tion of this performance, so far as it proceeds in this 
volume, and of the other great works, as they are termed, 
of Hindoo genius, so far as may be judged from short 
portions of them translated, is the negation of reason. 
Imagine a tribe of human beings in whom the intellectual 
faculty, strictly so called, should suddenly become extinct 
while imagination remained, and on being thus rid of its 
master, should instantly spring abroad into all the possibili- 
ties of wild and casual excursion ; the geniuses of such a 
tribe, that is, the individuals possessed of a more lively 
imagination than the rest, would write just such poetry as the 
Ramayuna. It shows, throughout, we do not say a violation, 
or rejection, but rather a clear absence, a total non-percep- 
tion, of the principles of proportion and analogy, of the laws 
of consistency and probability. There is a full abrogation 
of all the rules, definitive of the relation between cause and 
effect. Consequently any cause may produce any effect ; 
the mouse may eat the mountain, Jonah may swallow the 
whale ; and the author appears to rate his success in the 
effort at grandeur very much in proportion to the 
aggravated excess of the absurdity — the superlative degree, 
if we might so express it, of the impossibility. Probability 
is assumed for every proposition or image that may be put 
in words, though by its essential inconsistency it defy the 
power of conception. And if, for a few moments, the poet 
happens to keep clear of things impossible in the strict sense, 
that is, things of which the definition would involve a con- 
tradiction, he can hardly fail to be found in what is, doubt- 
less, according to whoever is the Hindoo Longinus, the next 
lower degree of sublimity, the creating of monstrosities ; 
describing beings and actions which, though not metaphysi- 
cally impossible, are out of all analogy with what we see or 
can otherwise know of the order of the creation. Thus a 
creature with an elephant r s body and fifty human heads, 
singing a grand chorus, is not an impossible thing in the 
strict sense, however desperate an undertaking it might be 
to go in search of it to any part of the mundane system ; 
and the only objection a Hindoo poet would have to 



MONSTEOSITIES OF HINDOO POETST- 413 

such a fiction, would arise from its being too diminutive and 
tame an effort of absurdity, — unless lie might be allowed to 
say that the body was of the bulk of a vast mountain, and 
that each of the heads roared a tempest. 

It is but very rarely, that for a moment the absurdity of 
this poetry is confined to anything so near the neighbour- 
hood of rationality, as what we may denominate simple 
enormousness, — that is, the swelling of agents and actions 
to a magnitude, which we know to be far beyond any thing 
in reality, but still in conformity to a certain scale, by which 
these extraordinary beings are kept in some assignable pro- 
portion to the ordinary ones of their genus, and by which a 
due proportion is kept between the agents and the things 
they accomplish ; as Homer, a manufacturer of giants in a 
very small way, contrives to avoid disgusting us when he 
makes some of his combatants easily toss such stones as ten 
men of the common sort could not lift. Even in the 
description of the people of Brobdignag (to say nothing of 
the strong satirical sense which is the substratum of 
all the Grulliver fictions), a strict law of consistency and pro- 
portion is observed throughout all the prodigious giantisms, 
evincing the constant intervention of intellect. Iu the 
Bamayuna, all is pure measureless raving. An imagination 
which seems to combine the advantages of mania, supersti- 
tion, and drunkenness, is put a-going, makes a set of what it 
names worlds, of its own, and fills them with all sorts of 
agents — gods, sages, demi-god-monkeys, and a numberless 
diversity of fantastic entities, at once magnified and dis- 
torted to the last transcendent madness of extravagance, — 
some additional monster still striding and bellowing into the 
hurly-burly, whenever the poet thinks it not sufficiently 
turbulent and chaotic. None of these agents are exhibited 
with any defined nature, or ascertained measure of power, or 
regular mode of action. They any of them can do, and are 
made to do, just whatever happens to dash into the fancy of 
the poetic raver. A sage is represented as frightening all 
the gods ; and if the idea of his ordering and forcing them 
all into his snuff-box had happened to come into the poet's 
head, they had undoubtedly been made to hold their court 
there some ten thousand years, at the least. And thus the 
narration, if so slightly connected a course of stories can be 



414 SANSCEIT LITEEATTTEE. 

so called, is made up of a set of achievements which confound 
all attempts to form a steady notion of the nature and capa- 
cities, positive or relative, of any of the beings that accom- 
plish them ; while the stories are so perfectly matchless in 
silly extravagance, that the very utmost absurdity and fool- 
ery of the most desperate European rant and mock-heroic, 
creep and toil, as if under the weight of comparative ration- 
ality, at an infinite distance behind the enormous vapour- 
composed giant of Hindoo poetry. The more the writer 
displays of his sort of grandeur, the more contempt the 
reader feels ; tbe measureless vastness of all the personages 
and operations, which was sublimity in his account, and 
which almost overpowers all the Brahmins of Hindostan 
with religious awe, is to us exactly imbecility seen through 
an immensely magnifying medium t and the mind labours 
for a greater ability of despising, than it has ever, in the 
ordinary course of its exercise, been excited to acquire. 

It is as a reputed great work of genius that the Eama- 
yuna will encounter utter contempt in Europe, separately 
from, as far as we can separate and make allowances for its 
character, as a teacher of a monstrous and puerile mythology. 
When this kind of allowance has been made for Homer, 
Virgil, and Ovid, what remains is, that they are very great 
poets. Even the advantage usually and reasonably proposed 
to be communicated by making better known the ancient 
writings of a people, that of our obtaining a knowledge of 
their manners from pictures drawn by themselves, will be 
sought in vain from a performance like this, in which all 
things are ambitiously, though childishly, preternatural. 
It was, for instance, probably no part of the ancient 
manners and customs of India, for an individual to perform 
sacred austerities, as they are called, in a particular place 
for a thousand, or ten thousand years together. 

As to what form the beautiful spangles of our western 
poetry and eloquence, the original and apposite metaphors 
and comparisons, we should think there is nothing of the 
kind to be found in this grand oriental performance. There 
are indeed metaphors and comparisons ; but, as far as we 
can judge, they are a mere common place of the country 
where the poet lived. Tbe moon and stars, a number of 
animals and vegetables, some particular gods and heroes, 






ANALYSIS OP THE EAMATTJNA. 415 

&c. &c, were become a common stock for the use of all that 
wanted tropes in speech or writing ; so that there was no 
more novelty or ingenuity in introducing them, than there 
is among us in repeating those rare similes, as rotten as a 
pear, as sound as a bell, as obstinate as a swine, as valiant 
as Alexander, and so forth. It is not to be pointedly 
objected to this, or any other eastern performance in par- 
ticular, that the analogy in the simile or metaphor is usually 
very slight and general, as this is a characteristic of almost 
all oriental composition. 

The quantity of general remark we have been betrayed 
into, leaves no room for any attempt at displaying in detail 
the qualities or parts of this first book of the Bamayuna. 
And we repeat, we cannot acknowledge any duty of wasting 
so much labour on what forms a more egregious mass of 
folly than would be produced by any one of our readers that 
should keep a month's diary (or rather noctuary, since they 
undoubtedly all rise early in a morning) of his dreams. In 
the descriptive remarks we have made, we have been able to 
give but an extremely feeble idea of the surpassing excess of 
absurdity which prevails throughout the production, which 
is really worth any one's reading that cares to see the 
maximum of that quality. The basis of the story is the 
birth, life, and adventures of Rama, who is an incarnation of 
the god Yishnu, a god evidently of the foremost rank, but of 
what power or excellence, as contradistinguished from his 
brother magnates, we may safely defy all the Brahmins in 
India, and their disciples in England, to show, from this or 
their other sacred books ; for all these deities seem jumbled, 
as by purely accidental evolutions, into bigness and little- 
ness by turns. The king, whose son Yishnu consented to 
become at the persuasion of all the gods, who were terrified 
by Bavuna, a demon whose pernicious designs could be 
frustrated by no celestial being but one in human shape, 
had been long childless, and had been performing a course 
of religious austerities to obtain from Brahma (or whether 
in spite of him, is not clear), the happiness of an heir. The 
favour was granted, and Eama was the prince. He of 
course gave, in early years, amazing signs of the power that 
was in due time to perform achievements which were to 
astonish and shake the universe. Many adventures, how- 



416 SANSCBIT LITEBATUBE. 

ever, are related before his career of action commences ; and 
after he does come into play, the narration is loaded with 
many bulky episodes about the adventures of other heroes. 
Of one of these personages it is stated that, like Kama's 
father, he was childless, and that he had been engaged, if we 
mistake not, several thousand years in religious austerities, 
to induce the gods, or the king of them, to confer a similar 
favour. It was granted to some purpose ; for he had two 
consorts, and it was promised that the one should bring him 
one son of transcendent merit and prowess, and the other — 
sixty thousand, inferior to that one, but yet all of great 
talents and expectations ; and it was offered to the choice of 
the two ladies which would be the mother of the one, and 
which of the sixty thousand. The latter undertaking may 
seem to involve very considerable difficulties ; — but nothing 
is difficult in the hands of a Hindoo poet. This daring 
matron was in due time happily delivered of a tree, a shrub, 
or whatever it may be called, — a gourd we think it is in the 
book, — on which the sixty thousand grew, as it might have 
been nuts or currants, and fell off into the form of so many 
mighty heroes ; who at their father's command, and in pur- 
suit of a god or demon who had stolen a horse which he had 
appointed for a sacrifice, dug through the earth from side to 
side, in various directions, reducing it to the condition of a 
worm-eaten cork ; and that in a very short time, and in spite 
of its being of thousands of times greater bulk, than out 
mathematicians have, in the true spirit of European little- 
ness, mistakenly computed. Another history is to this 
effect : A royal sage had a cow named Shubula, "When 
another monarch sage, in marching through the country, 
stopped on the former sage's farm a little while with a vast 
army, this cow gave all sorts of liquors, and all sorts of 
meat, baked, boiled, fried, and in short cooked to the taste 
of every individual in the army, insomuch that every man 
was delighted and surprisingly fattened. On going away, it 
is not wonderful that his majesty at the head of the army, 
should, if it had only been to rid himself of his peculating 
commissariat, request to have this cow, offering, however, a 
handsome equivalent, as he might very well afford. The 
request not being complied with, force was had recourse to 
to take her away. She, however, made her escape, and came 



THE MOLALITY OF WOEKS OF FICTION - . 417 

weeping and expostulating to the feet of her owner. He 
was afraid to interfere, but she was advised to do the best 
she could for herself. On which she forthwith rained out an 
almost innumerable army of terrific warriors, who drove, cut, 
and slashed at such a rate, that the host of the royal cow- 
stealer was quickly annihilated. These are tolerably 
moderate specimens of the general substance of this epic 
performance. The lingo in which these feats are narrated, 
defies all imitation. 

We cannot fail to be somewhat the wiser for having a few 
such things brought into our language ; but we think the 
moral rule relative to the use of time and paper should with- 
stand any very large importations. But, indeed, taste will 
do what morality probably would not ; for it will be impos- 
sible to find in England any considerable number of readers 
who will not soon sicken at such entertainment. If there 
are any ingenuous men, who, not content to rest religion on 
plain reason and revelation, must needs seek its primitive 
elements in an analysis of this branch of ancient mythology, 
they had much the best go and learn Sanscrit at once. 

An insurmountable obstacle to the popularity of this sort 
of reading in Europe, if the works were attended by no 
other deterring circumstance, would be the vast number of 
names by which each of the gods or heroes is designated, 
this being, as it should seem, hardly fewer than the whole 
catalogue of descriptive epithets deemed most appropriate to 
them. We should observe that the learned translators 
would not have done amiss, to assign their reason for an 
orthography so widely different from that commonly adopted 
by our oriental scholars. 



THE MOEALITT OE WOEKS OE FICTION. 



Tales of Fashionable Life. By Miss Edgeworth, Author of 
Practical Education, Belinda, &c. 12mo. 1810. 

On the supposition, or the chance, that any small number 
of our readers may not have taken the trouble to acquaint 

E E 



418 THE MORALITY OF WORKS OF FICTIOF. 

themselves with the distinguishing qualities of the produc- 
tions of a writer, who has already contributed the amount 
of more than twenty volumes to the otherwise scanty stock 
of our literature, — and, if we may judge from the short 
interval between the works in the latter part of the series, 
is likely at the very least, to double the number, — it may 
not be amiss to set down a very few observations, suggested 
chiefly by the perusal of one portion of her performances, 
though it belongs by its form to a department over which 
we do not pretend any right of habitual censorship. 

It is evident this writer has a much higher object than 
merely to amuse. Being very seriously of opinion that 
mankind want mending, and that she is in possession of 
one of the most efficacious arts for such a purpose, she has 
set about the operation in good earnest. But when any 
machine, material or moral, is wrong, there are a few very 
obvious prerequisites to the attempt to set it right. The 
person that undertakes it should know what the machine 
was designed for ; should perceive exactly what part of its 
present action is defective or mischievous ; should discern 
the cause of this disordered effect ; and, for the choice of 
the implements and method of correction, should have the 
certainty of the adept, instead of the guesses of the tamper- 
ing experimenter, or the downright hardihood of ignorant 
presumption. "When the disordered subject to be operated 
on is a thing of no less importance than human nature, it 
should seem that these prerequisites are peculiarly indis- 
pensable ; and the existence ought to be inferable from the 
operator's boldness, if we see him putting to the work so 
confident a hand as that of oar author. A hand more con- 
fident, apparently, has very seldom been applied to the 
business of moral correction ; and that business is prose- 
cuted in a manner so little implying, on the part of our 
author, any acknowledgment that she is working on a sub- 
ordinate ground, and according to the lowest class of the 
principles of moral discipline, — and therefore so little hint- 
ing even the existence of any more elevated and authori- 
tative principles, — that she is placed within the cognizance 
of a much graver sort of criticism than would at first view, 
appear applicable to a writer of tales. She virtually takes 
the rank among the teachers who profess to exhibit the 



IGNORANCE OF MAN'S MOEAL DESTINY. 419 

comprehensive theory of duty and happiness. She would 
"be considered as undertaking the treatment of what is the 
most serious and lamentable, as well as what is most light 
and ridiculous, in human perversity; and according to a 
method which at all events cannot be exceeded in soundness, 
however it may prove in point of efficacy. 

!Now when we advert to the prerequisites for such an un- 
dertaking, we cannot repress the suspicion that our author 
is unqualified for it. It is a grand point of incompetency 
if she is totally ignorant what the human race exists for. 
And there appears nothing in the present, or such other of 
her works as we have happened to look into, to prevent the 
surmise, that this question would completely baffle her. 
Keduce her to say what human creatures were made for, 
and there would be an end of her volubility. Whether our 
species were intended as an exhibition for the amusement 
of some superior, invisible, and malignant intelligences ; or 
were sent here to expiate the crimes of some pre-existent 
state ; or were made for the purpose, as some philosophers 
will have it and phrase it, of developing the faculties of the 
earth, that is to say, managing its vegetable produce, ex- 
tracting the wealth of its mines, and the like ; or were 
merely a contrivance for giving to a certain number of 
atoms the privilege of being, for a few years, the constituent 
particles of warm upright living figures ; — whether they are 
appointed to any future state of sentiment, or rational 
existence ; — whether, if so, it is to be one fixed state, or a 
series of transmigrations ; a higher or lower state than the 
present ;. a state of retribution, or bearing no relation to 
moral qualities ; — whether there be any Supreme Power, 
that presides over the succession and condition of the race, 
and will see to their ultimate destination, — or, in short, 
whether there be any design, contrivance, or intelligent 
destination in the whole affair, or the fact be not rather, 
that the species, with all its present circumstances, and 
whatever is to become of it hereafter, is the production and 
sport of chance, — all these questions are probably undecided 
in the mind of our ingenious moralist. And how can she 
be qualified to conduct the discipline of a kind of beings of 
the nature and relations of which she is so profoundly 
ignorant ? If it were not a serious thing on account of its 

E E 2 



420 THE MORALITY OF WORKS OF FICTION. 

presumption, would it not be an incomparably ludicrous 
one on account cf its absurdity, that a popular instructor 
should be most busily enforcing a set of principles of action 
— not as confessedly superficial and occasional, and merely 
subservient to a specific purpose, but as fundamental and 
comprehensive — while that instructor does not know whe- 
ther the creatures, whose characters are attempted to be 
formed on those principles, are bound or not by the laws of 
a Supreme Governor, nor whether they are to be affected 
by the right or wrong of moral principles for only a few 
times twelve months, or to all eternity r Here an admirer 
of Miss Edgeworth's moral philosophy might be expected 
to say, " But why may not our professor be allowed to set 
these considerations out of the question ; since many things 
in the theory of morals are very clear and very important 
independently of them? Integrity, prudence, industry, 
generosity, and good manners, can be shown to be vitally 
connected with our immediate interests, and powerfully 
enforced on that ground, whether there be or be not a 
Supreme Governor and Judge, and a future life ; and why 
may not our instructor hold this ground, exempt from the 
interference of theology ? What we see we know : we can 
actually survey the whole scope of what you call the present 
life of human creatures, and can discern how its happiness 
is affected by the virtues and vices which our professor so 
forcibly illustrates : and why may it not be a very useful 
employment to teach the art of happiness thus far, whatever 
may ultimately be found to be the truth or error of the 
speculations on invisible beings and future existences ?" 

To this the obvious reply would be, first — in terms of 
identical import with those we have already used — that the 
ingenious preceptress does not give her pupils the slightest 
word of warning, that it is 'possible their moral interests may 
be of an extent infinitely beyond anything she takes into 
account : that if the case is so, her philosophy however use- 
ful to a certain length, in a particular way, cannot but be 
infinitely inadequate as a disciplinary provision for their 
entire interests ; and that, therefore, in consideration of 
such a possibility, it is their serious duty to inquire how 
much more it may be indispensable to learn, than she ever 
professes to teach them. She does not tell them, and would 



DEFICIENT MOEAL SYSTEM. 421 

deem it excessively officious and fanatical in any one that 
should do it for her, that if there be any truth — nay, if there 
be the bare possibility of truth — in what religionists believe 
and teach — a philosopher like her cannot be admitted as 
competent to contribute to the happiness of mankind, in a 
much higher capacity than the persons that make clothes 
and furnish houses. She may not, in so many words, assert 
it would be idle or delusive to think of proposing any 
superior and more remotely prospective system of moral 
principles : but all appearances are carefully kept up to the 
point of implying as much ; and we apprehend she would be 
diverted, or would be fretted, just as the mood of her mind 
happened at the moment to be, to hear a sensible person, 
after reading her volumes, say : " Very just, very instructive, 
on a narrow and vulgar ground of moral calculation ; it is 
well fitted to make me a reputable sort of a man, and not 
altogether useless, during a few changes of the moon : if I 
were sure of ending after a few of those changes, in nothing 
but a clod, I do not know that I should want anything 
beyond the lessons of this philosopher's school : but while 
I believe there is even a chance of a higher destiny, it is an 
obvious dictate of common sense, that it cannot be safe, and 
that it would be degrading, to attempt to satisfy myself 
with a little low scheme of morality, adapted to nothing in 
existence beyond the mere convenience of some score or two 
of years, more or less." Out first censure is, then, that 
setting up for a moral guide, our author does not pointedly 
state to her followers, that as it is but a very short stage 
she can pretend to conduct them, they had need — if they 
suspect they shall be obliged to go farther — to be looking 
out, even in the very beginning of this short stage in which 
she accompanies them, for other guides to undertake for 
their safety in the remoter region. She presents herself 
with the air and tone of a person, who would sneer or spurn 
at the apprehensive insinuated inquiry, whether any change 
or addition of guides might eventually become necessary. 

But, secondly, our author's moral system — on the hypo- 
thesis of the truth, or possible truth, of revelation — is not 
only infinitely deficient, as being calculated to subserve the 
interests of the human creatures only to so very short a 
distance, while yet it carefully keeps out of sight all that 



422 THE MORALITY OE WORKS OE FICTION. 

may be beyond ; it is also — still on the same hypothesis — 
perniciously erroneous as far as it goes. Eor it teaches 
virtue on principles on which virtue itself will not be 
approved by the Supreme Governor; and it avowedly 
encourages some dispositions, and directly or by implica- 
tion tolerates others, which in the judgment of that 
Governor are absolutely vicious- As to the unsound 
quality of the virtue here taught, it would be quite enough 
to observe, that it bears no reference whatever to the will 
and laws of a superior Being. It is careless whether there 
is such a Being, — whether, if there be, men are accountable 
to him, or not, — whether he has appointed laws, — whether 
he can enforce them, — whether he can punish the refusal to 
obey them. In short it is a virtue that would not he 
'practised for his sake ; which is to be practised solely under 
the influence of other considerations ; and which would be, 
at the dictate of these considerations, varied to any extent 
from any standard alleged to bear his authority. It is 
really superfluous to say that, on the religious hypothesis, 
such a virtue is utterly spurious, and partakes radically of 
the worst principles of vice. It is, besides, unstable in all 
its laws, as being founded on a combinatiom of principles 
undefined, arbitrary, capricious, and sometimes incom- 
patible. Pride, honour, generous impulse, calculation of 
temporal advantage and custom of the country, are con- 
vened along with we know not how many other grave 
authorities, as the components of Miss Edgeworth's moral 
government — the Amphictyons of her legislative assembly. 
These authorities being themselves subject, singly or 
collectively, to no one paramount authority, may vary with- 
out end in their compromise with one another, and in their 
enactment of laws ; so that by the time Miss Edge worth 
comes to write her last volume in the concluding year of 
her life, she may chance to find it necessary — in maintain- 
ing a faithful adherence to them through all their caprices 
— to give the name of virtues to sundry things she now 
calls vices, and vice versa. There can be no decisive 
casuistry on the ground of such a system ; and it would be 
easy to imagine situations in which the question of duty 
would, even under the present state of that moral legislation 
which she enjoins us to revere, put her to as complete a 



NOT CONEOEMED TO THE CHEISTIAN STANDAED. 423 

nonplus as the question, "What was man made for?" 
She is, however, dexterous enough, in general, to avoid such 
situations. It must be acknowledged, too, that perhaps the 
greater part of the moral practice which she sanctions, is, 
taken merely as practice, disconnected from all consideration 
of motives and opinions, substantially the same that the 
soundest moralist must inculcate, — unless his lectures could 
be allowed to be silent on the topics of justice in the tran- 
sactions of business, the advantages of cultivating a habit 
of general kindness and liberality, exertions for amending 
the condition of the poor, patient firmness in the pro- 
secution of good designs, with various other things of a 
character equally unequivocal. But there are some parts of 
her practical exhibitions unmarked with any note of dis- 
approbation, where a Christian moralist would apply the 
most decided censure. She shows, for instance, a very 
great degree of tolerance for the dissipation of the wealthy 
classes, if it only stop short of utter frivolity or profligacy, 
and of ruinous expense. All the virtue she demands of 
them may easily comport with a prodigious quantity of 
fashion, and folly, and splendour, and profuseness. They 
may be allowed to whirl in amusements till they are dead 
sick, and then have recourse to a little sober useful goodness 
to recover themselves. They are indeed advised to cultivate 
their minds ; but, as it should seem, for the purpose, 
mainly, of giving dignity to their rank, and zest and sparkle 
to the conversations of their idle and elegant parties. 
They are recommended to become the promoters of useful 
schemes in their neighbourhoods, and the patrons of the 
poor ; but it does not appear that this philanthropy is 
required to be carried the length of costing any serious per- 
centage on their incomes. The grand and ultimate object 
of all the intellectual and moral exertions to which our 
author is trying to coax and prompt them, is confessedly, — 
self-complacency ; and it is evident that, while surrounded 
incessantly with frivolous and selfish society to compare 
themselves with, they may assume this self-complacency on 
the strength of very middling attainments in wisdom and 
beneficence. 

Another gross fault (on the supposition, still, that religion 
may chance to be more than an idle fancy) is our author's 



424 THE MOEALITT OF WORKS OF FICTION. 

tolerance of profaneness. As to some of the instances of 
what every pions man would regard as profane expressions, 
either absolutely or by the connexion in which they are put, 
she will say, perhaps, that they are introduced merely as a 
language appropriate to the characters ; and that those 
characters were never meant for patterns of excellence. 
This plea is of little validity for any narrator but the histo- 
rian of real facts, who has but a partial option as to what he 
shall relate. In a merely literary court indeed it might go 
some length in defence of a fictitious writer ; but let religion 
be introduced among the judges in such a court, and the deci- 
sion would be, that minute truth of fictitious representation 
involves no moral benefit adequate to compensate the mis- 
chief of familiarizing the reader's mind to language which 
associates the most solemn ideas with the most trifling or 
detestable. But this happens, in the present instance, to be 
a needless argument ; for the broadest and vilest piece of 
profaneness comes out in one of what are intended as the 
finest moments, of one of what are intended as the finest 
characters, in all these volumes. The character, — a spirited, 
generous, clever fellow, evidently a high favourite of our 
author, — is young Beaumont, in the tale entitled " Manoeu- 
vring," in the third volume; the moment is when he is 
exulting (p. 78) at the news of a great naval victory, in 
which his most esteemed friend is supposed to have had a 



We will only add, in order to get to the end of this 
homily of criticism, that our author's estimate of the evil of 
vice in general, excepting such vices as are glaringly marked 
with meanness or cruelty, appears to be exceedingly light 
in comparison with that which is taught in the school of 
revelation. And, consistently with this, the sentiments of 
penitential grief which she attributes to one of her principal 
characters, Lord Glenthorn, whom she reforms from a very 
great degree of profligacy, are wonderfully superficial and 
transient : nay, he is even made, in the commencement of 
his reformation, to reckon up the virtues of his past worth- 
less and vicious life, with a self-complacency which far 
over-balanced his self-reproaches. And, indeed, those self- 
reproaches when they were felt, had but extremely little of 
the quality of what in Christian language is meant by 



PBIDE THE CHIEF MOTIVE TO YIBTTTE. 425 

repentance : they are made to have expressed themselves 
much more in the manner of mortified pride. And this, 
again, is in perfect consistency with the motives to virtue 
on which the chief reliance appears to be placed throughout 
these volumes : for the most powerful of those motives is 
pride. To manoeuvre this passion in every mode which 
ingenuity can suggest; to ply it with every variety of 
stimulus, and contrive that at each step of vice something 
shall happen to mortify it, — if possible, according to the 
regular and natural course of cause and effect ; if not, by 
some extraordinary occurrence, taking place at the will of 
the writer, — and that each step of virtue shall be attended 
by some circumstance signally gratifying to it, — this is the 
grand moral machinery of our moralist and reformer. And, 
indeed, what else could she do, or what better, after she had 
resolved that no part of her apparatus should be put in 
action by " the powers of the world to come ? " For as to 
that intrinsic beauty of virtue which philosophers have pre- 
tended to descry and adore, this philosopher knew right well 
how likely it was that such a vision should disclose itself, 
with all its mystical fascinations, to the frequenters of ball- 
rooms and card-tables, of galas and operas, of gambling- 
houses and brothels. 

Thus denied, by the quality of the subjects she bas to 
work upon, the assistance of all that has been boasted by 
sages as the most refined and elevated in philosophy, — and 
by the limits of her creed, probably, as well as the disposition 
of her taste, the assistance of those principles professing to 
come from heaven, and which, whencesoever they have come, 
have formed the best and sublimest human characters that 
ever appeared on aarth, — our moralist would be an object of 
much commiseration, if she did not manifest the most entire 
self-complacency. Yet it is but justice to say that she does 
not attribute any miraculous power to those sordid, moral 
principles, on the sole operation of which she is content to 
rest her hopes of human improvement. Eor on Lord Glen- 
thorn, the hero of the longest and most interesting of these 
tales, she represents this operation as totally inefficacious 
till aided by the discovery that he is no Lord ; having been 
substituted in his infancy for the true infant peer by 
Ellinor O'Donoghoe, the inhabitant of a dirty mud cabin, 



426 THE MORALITY OF WORKS OF FICTION. 

his mother, and that peer's nurse. And the subject which 
is thus made to illustrate the inefficacy, is notwithstanding 
represented as naturally endowed with very favourable dis- 
positions and very good talents. In the stories of 
"Almeria" and " Manoeuvring," the utmost powers of the 
reforming discipline are honestly represented as fairly 
baffled, from beginning to end, the culprits adhering to 
their faults and follies with inviolable fidelity, — leaving our 
moral legislator no means of vindicating the merits of her 
system, but to show that the pride, and other inglorious 
principles, by the operation of which a reform of conduct 
was to have been effected, if they cannot amend the subjects 
of her discipline, can at least make them wretched. And so 
she leaves them, with as much indifference apparently as 
that with which a veteran sexton comes away from filling up 
the grave of one of his neighbours. She does not even, as 
far as appears, wish to turn them over to Methodism, not- 
withstanding that this has the repute of sometimes working 
very strange transformations, and might as well have been 
mentioned as a last expedient worth the trying, in some of 
those obstinate desperate cases in which all the preparations 
from the great laboratory at Edgeworthstown, have been 
employed in vain. Perhaps, however, our author would 
think such a remedy, even in its utmost success, worse than 
the disease. Yet it would be a little curious to observe 
what she really would think and say at witnessing an 
instance in which a person, who had long pursued a foolish 
or profligate course in easy defiance of all such correctives 
as constitute her boasted discipline, being, at length, power- 
fully arrested by the thought of a judgment to come, — 
should forswear at once all his inveterat% trifling or deeper 
immoralities, and adopt, and prosecute to his last hour, and 
with the highest delight, a far more arduous plan of virtue 
than any that she has dared to recommend or delineate. 
There have been very many such instances ; and it would be 
extremely amusing — if some ideas too serious for amuse- 
ment were not involved, — on citing to her some indubitable 
example of this kind, to compel ber to answer the plain 
question : " Is this a good thing — yea or no ?" 

It was almost solely for the purpose of making a few 
remarks on the moral tendency of our author's voluminous 



CHAEACTEBISTICS OE MISS EDGKEWOftTIl's TALES. 427 

productions, that we have noticed the work of which we 
have transcribed the title ; and we need say very few words 
respecting the other qualities of her books. For pre- 
dominant good sense, knowledge of the world, discrimination 
of character, truth in the delineation of manners, and 
spirited dialogue, it is hardly possible to praise them too 
much. Most of her characters are formed from the most 
genuine and ordinary materials of human nature, — with very 
little admixture of anything derived from heaven, or the 
garden of Eden, or the magnificent part of the regions of 
poetry. There is rarely anything to awaken for one 
moment the enthusiasm of an aspiring spirit, delighted to 
contemplate, and ardent to resemble, a model of ideal excel- 
lence. Indeed, a higher order of characters would in a 
great measure have precluded an exercise of her talents, in 
which she evidently delights, and in which she very highly 
excels — that is, the analyzing of the mixed motives by which 
persons are often governed, while they are giving themselves 
credit for being actuated by one simple and perfectly laud- 
able motive; the detecting of all the artifices of dissimulation; 
and the illustration of all the modes in which selfishness 
pervades human society. Scarcely has Swift himself evinced 
a keener scent in pursuit of this sort of game ; a sort of 
game which, we readily acknowledge it is, with certain 
benevolent limitations, very fair and useful to hunt. And 
we must acknowledge, too, that our author, while passing 
shrewd, is by no means cynical. She is very expert at 
contriving situations for bringing out all the qualities of 
her personages, for contrasting those personages with one 
another, for creating excellent amusement by their mutual 
reaction, and for rewarding or punishing their merits or 
faults. She appears intimately acquainted with the pre- 
vailing notions, prejudices, and habits of the different ranks 
and classes of society. She can imitate very satirically the 
peculiar diction and slang of each ; and has contrived (but 
indeed it needed very little contrivance) to make the 
fashionable dialect of the upper ranks sound exceedingly 
silly. As far as she has had opportunities for observation, 
she has caught a very discriminative idea of national 
characters : that of the Irish is delineated with incomparable 
accuracy and spirit. It may be added, that our author, 



428 ON CETJELTT TO ANIMALS. 

possessing a great deal of general knowledge, finds many 
lucky opportunities for producing it, in short arguments and 
happy allusions. Unless we had some room for a distinct 
notice of each of the tales in these volumes, it will be no use 
to mention that their titles are the following — "Ennui," 
" Almeria," "Madame deMeury," " TheDun," and "Manoeuv- 
ring;" the first and the last each filling an entire volume. 



ON CEUELTT TO ANIMALS. 

Speech of the Eight Hon. "W. Windham in the House of Commons, 
June 13, 1809, on Lord Erskine's Bill for the more effectual 
Prevention of Cruelty towards Animals. 8vo. 1810. 

The proposal of this Bill to the House of Commons, and 
the prompt and unceremonious dismissal, are sufficiently 
fresh in recollection. Its fate would doubtless have been 
the same in that Imperial assembly, though the author of 
this Speech had been summoned from his seat there before 
the subject came into discussion. Had it, however, been 
possible that a great, enlightened y and humane legislature 
could have felt any slight degree of hesitation to reject a 
motion for a law to abridge the license of cruelty ; it may 
well be believed that a speech like this would materially 
contribute to rid them of the sentimental weakness of 
entertaining such a scruple. It would have been a truly 
girlish and laughable thing in a venerable Council — before 
which an enormous mass of cruelty was incontrovertibly 
alleged to be habitually perpetrated among the people over 
whom that Council presided — to have given themselves any 
trouble about the matter, after witnessing this capital dis- 
play of that acuteness, that talent for representing a serious 
subject in a ludicrous light, that power of securing tolerance 
for a large quantity of fallacy, under protection of a certain 
portion of important truth, which so remarkably charac- 
terized this statesman ; we suppose we ought to say lamented 
statesman : for we observe it is the fashion among all sorts 
of people — Christian or infidel — high political party or low 
— ins or outs — as soon as a man whose talents have made a 






me. windham's views. 429 

figure is gone, to extol him in the topmost epic and elegiac 
phrases ; even though the general operation of his talents 
had been through life what these very persons had a thou- 
sand times execrated as pernicious. 

The Speech begins with asserting, that the treatment of 
brute animals by men, is not a fit subject for legislative 
enactments ; and by citing, as a strong sanction of the rule 
of exclusion, the conduct of all nations and legislators, none 
of whom, according to our senator, ever appointed any laws 
for the protection of animals, on the pure principle of 
humane guardianship, — an assertion which he makes in the 
most unqualified manner, and which his extensive learning 
would make it rash in us to call in question ; since it could 
not have escaped his knowledge if any national code of laws 
had ever contained such a sentence as this — "thou shalt 
not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." 

From this universal avoidance to enact laws for the pro- 
tection of brute animals, Mr. "Windham argues, that what 
Lord Erskine mentions, in somewhat exulting terms as a 
recommendation of his bill, " that it would form a new era 
of legislation," is rather a ground for suspicion and rejec- 
tion ; since it is not unfair to presume that what all legis- 
lators have avoided to do, is something not proper to be 
done. "With plenty of cold shrewdness he adds, — 

" "We ought to have a reasonable distrust of the founders of 
such eras, lest they should be a little led away by an object of 
such splendid ambition, and be thinking more of themselves 
than of the credit of the laws or the interests of the community. 
To have done that which no one yet had ever thought of doing ; 
to have introduced into legislation, at this period of the world, 
what had never yet been found in the laws of any country, and 
that too for a purpose of professed humanity (or rather of some- 
thing more than humanity, as commonly understood and prac- 
tised) ; to be the first who had stood up as the champion of the 
rights of brutes, was as marked a distinction, even though it 
should not turn out upon examination to be as proud a one, as 
man could well aspire to." — P. 4. 

The sentence which immediately follows is this : "The 
Legislature, however, must not be carried away with these 
impulses, of whatever nature they might be," &c. Those 
who heard and saw Mr. Windham while uttering this, could 



430 ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 

probably judge whether it was said sarcastically, or in 
simple honest gravity. The only thing that can make this 
a question in the minds of those who can merely read the 
speech, is the recollection of Mr. Windham's notorious 
propensity to sarcasm ; for that there was a propriety in 
uttering the sentence gravely, is sufficiently obvious. There 
was the greatest need of a caution against the too precipi- 
tate impulses of humanity in a Legislature which had, 
through twenty years of most ample discussion and expo- 
sure, maintained the slave-trade, with its infinite combina- 
tion of horrors, in easy and sometimes jocular contempt of 
the appeals to feeling, in a thousand affecting forms ; in 
contempt of the demonstrations of impolicy, and of the 
references to an Almighty Avenger ; and which, when 
approaching at last, under the ascendancy of administration 
for the time being, to the long-desired abolition, had still 
such a character in the public opinion that, even when the 
vast influence of the ministry was taken into the account, 
the friends of humanity were nevertheless, according to 
Mr. Clarkson's relation, in a perfect agony of fear till the 
decision was past. It had been a neglect of duty not to 
have cautioned, against too hasty and undigested measures 
for the repression of cruelty, a Legislature which had 
scouted, during the greatest part of a long series of years, 
every suggestion of an effort for the termination of war. 
And (to descend to an inferior circumstance) the manner in 
which the Legislature had entertained Mr. Windham's own 
assertion of the moral and political benefits of bull-bait- 
ing, with all its inseparable blackguardism and profaneness, 
as contrasted with the mischievous effects of going to the 
conventicle, to hear about the worth of the soul, preparation 
for a future state, and such like matters — had fully shown 
him the propriety of admonishing that Legislature not to 
be rashly impetuous in their enactments even against bar- 
barous practices. There was no lesson so becoming in the 
veteran senator, so near the end of his labours, to give, nor 
half so needful to the assembly which he addressed — as that 
which virtuous and ardent minds so reluctantly learn, the 
wisdom of being sometimes a little more slow and deliberate 
even in doing good, than the first generous "impulses" 
would be willing to permit. There is no knowing to what 



HUMANITY IN THE ABSTKACT. 431 

dangerous lengths such impulses may lead, if unrestrained 
by such wisdom. Had this bill, for instance, for the pre- 
vention of cruelty to animals been suffered to pass, who was 
to insure the country against being brought, at the next 
parliamentary movement of these " impulses," to the brink 
of irretrievable ruin, by an act to abrogate, in spite of 
Mr. Windham's cool approbation of its existence (p. 9), 
that power under the poor-laws, by the exercise of which, 
he says, " paupers at the point of death, and women expect- 
ing at every moment to be seized with the pangs of labour, 
are turned out into the streets or roads, sooner than by the 
death in one case, or the birth in the other, a burden should 
be brought upon the parish ?" 

Next comes the customary cant, proper always to be 
canted, when a practical attempt at doing some good is to 
be opposed, about the " desirableness of the object, speaking 
abstractedly." " As far," says he, " as mere uninstructed 
wishes went, every man must wish that the sufferings of all 
animated nature were less than they are." That this sort 
of language fully deserves, in this place, the name we have 
given it, we shall have occasion to show. The speaker does 
however, it must be confessed, go on to say, that we must 
not in. so good a cause be content with mere wishes ; and, 
defining morality itself " a desire rationally conducted to 
promote general happiness," he exhorts all, in their private 
individual capacity, to do all they can to lessen the measure 
of suffering, as well among the brute as the rational animals. 
Excuse him from any duty of promoting the good design in 
his high capacity of legislator, in which he has so much 
more than the power of a mere private person, — and he will 
lecture the whole nation on the duty of every man as a 
private person, to exert the utmost of his inferior power in 
the prevention of cruelty ; and on the absurdity of a people's 
expecting their governors to be virtuous in substitution for 
them. It is thus that moral obligations are bandied from 
class to class in society: the people alleging that some 
important reform cannot be effected without the interposing 
power of their governors, and the governors declaring that 
the concern is not within the proper sphere of legislation — 
nay, it may be, professing that they cannot so far interfere 
with the " liberty of the subject /" Anything in the strain 



432 ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 

of this last profession coming from such a man as Mr. Wind- 
ham is, to be sure, incomparably ludicrous. 

In the desultory manner that prevails throughout this 
Speech, which is quite as disorderly as it is acute, the orator 
proceeds to animadvert on Lord Erskine's preamble to his 
bill, framed in the following terms : " Whereas it has 
pleased Almighty Grod to subdue to the dominion, use, and 
comfort of man, the strength and faculties of many useful 
animals, and to provide others for his food ; and whereas 
the abuse of that dominion, by cruel and oppressive treat- 
ment of such animals is not only highly unjust and immoral, 
but most pernicious in its example, having an evident ten- 
dency to harden the heart against the natural feelings of 
humanity." " A preamble," says Mr. Windham, " contain- 
ing a lofty maxim of morality or theology, too grand to be 
correct, too sublime to be seen distinctly, and most ludi- 
crously disproportioned to the enactments that follow." 
From which observation it should be evident that the less a 
legislator adverts to the Supreme Lawgiver the better, and 
that no sublime conceptions can be correct or distinct. 
Why the disproportion is inevitably so great between the 
" lofty maxim" and the enactments of the bill, is in part 
most forcibly shown by Mr. Windham himself, where he 
represents the impossibility of making effectual laws against 
the cruelties practised by the rich. 

It was also very unfair, in remarking this disparity, to 
take no notice of Lord Erskine's avowed object in setting 
out with the declaration of such a comprehensive moral 
principle, while fully aware that the specific enactments 
must be far more limited than such a principle would seem 
to authorize, and even to require. The object was, as he 
represented much at large, to give the utmost solemnity 
and sanction of legislative promulgation to a moral principle, 
in order to enforce it on the attention and the conscience of 
the people ; and thus to carry its efficacy, by a purely moral 
operation, to an extent far beyond the reach of laws, which 
unavoidably must, from the peculiar nature of the subject, 
be constructed on a very narrow scale, and leave incom- 
parably more of what belongs to that subject without, than 
they could take within, their cognizance. 

Affecting again to acknowledge the claims of humanity in 



BIDICULE, HIS EAV0T7BITE WEAPON. 433 

behalf of brutes, Mr. Windham, instead of lending the 
assistance of his discriminating understanding to ascertain 
the extent of those claims, and to discuss, seriously, the 
question whether some of them might not be made effective 
in the shape of a law, — attempts to turn them into ridicule 
by a sort of sneer at Lord Erskine's bill for not going the 
length of prohibiting animal food. He then suddenly turns 
round on the remonstrants against cruelty with the question 
— " "What is humanity ?" as much as to say, that a little 
consideration would convict them of extreme silliness in 
having so precipitately declared against the " very general 
practice of buying up horses still alive, but not capable of 
being ever further abused by any kind of labour ; and taking 
them in great numbers to slaughter-houses, not to be killed 
at once, but left without sustenance, and some of them 
literally starved to death, that the market might be gra- 
dually supplied ; the poor animals in the meantime being 
reduced to eat their own dung, and frequently gnawing one 
another's manes in the agonies of hunger." In the view of 
such facts he, in the most pleasant humour imaginable, 
spirts such a question, as is enough of itself, without more 
ado, to make an end of the business. It was not that he 
did not know well that there exist many atrocious practices 
of which the one here described is but a fair specimen : but 
he knew also in what society he might, without being 
esteemed ever the worse, employ* a mixture of jocularity and 
quibble to explode all such deliberation on such matters. 
The question " What is humanity ?" is triumphantly re- 
peated ; and all the intellectual dexterity, which a mind 
really desirous of promoting it would have anxiously exerted 
in trying to fix a few plain practical distinctions and rules, 
is employed not in merely exposing, but aggravating the 
legislative difficulties of the subject. The orator's reasoning 
is, that humanity is not a thing capable of being defined by 
precise limits : that no regulations could be enacted, on any 
wide scale, which would not leave the generality of occurring 
cases very much to the discretion and arbitrary decision of 
some living tribunal : that this would be to " require men to 
live by an unknown rule," and to "make the condition of 
life uncertain, by exposing men to the operation of a law 
which they cannot know till it visits them in the shape of 

if i 1 



434 OH" CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 

punishment :" and that while such a plan of government is 
extremely undesirable and dangerous in all cases, though 
in some few perhaps unavoidable; in the department of 
public regulation now in question, it would be peculiarly 
mischievous, — in consequence of the variable and capricious 
feelings by which the appointed authorities would be liable 
to be actuated in their estimates of humanity and cruelty, 
— in consequence of the impunity which would be enjoyed 
by the rich, and therefore by the judges themselves, gene- 
rally of course persons of that class (" as few," our senator 
says, " would inform against his worship the 'squire, because 
he had ridden his hunter to death, or unmercifully whipped, 
or in a fit of passion shot, his pointer,") — and in conse- 
quence of the prodigious opening that would be given, 
under such a discretionary administration of justice, for the 
operation of all the selfish and malicious passions ; for 
hypocrisy and the love of power. He expatiates with gleeful 
shrewdness on a passion which, he says, though not often 
adverted to, is at all times operating throughout the com- 
munity with mighty force, — the love of tormenting. This 
passion most eagerly seizes on any thing that can give it a 
colour of concern for the public good. 

" It is not to be told how eager it is when animated and sanc- 
tioned by the auxiliary motive of supposed zeal for the public 
service. It is childish for people to ask, what pleasure can any 
one have in tormenting others ? None in the mere pain inflicted, 
but the greatest possible in the various effects which may accom- 
pany it, — in the parade of virtue and in the exercise of power. 
A man cannot torment another without a considerable exercise 
of power, — in itself a pretty strong and general passion. But if 
he can at once exercise his power and make a parade of his 
virtue (which will eminently be the case in the powers to be 
exercised under this law), the combination of the two forms a 
motive which we might fairly say, flesh and blood could not 
withstand. In what a state then should we put the lowest 
orders of people (for they were the only persons who would be 
affected), when we should let loose upon them such a principle 
of action, armed with such a weapon as this bill would put into 
its hands 1 All the fanatical views and feelings, all the little 
bustling spirit of regulation, all the private enmities and quarrels 
would be at work, in addition to those more general passions 
before stated, and men would be daily punished by summary 
jurisdiction, or left to wait in gaol for the meeting of a more 



MANT MODES OE CBUELTY DEFINABLE. 435 

regular tribunal, for offences which are incapable of being 
defined, and which must be left therefore, to the arbitrary and 
fluctuating standard which the judge in either case might happen 
to carry in his breast." — P. 16. 

"Now, in the first place, it is not a little ludicrous, nor a 
little disgusting, to hear this gentleman affecting all this 
solicitude not to harass the people by a vague and sweeping 
mode of legislation, and extra-legal exertions of authority : 
this personage who, when another class of the faults of the 
community were in discussion, could so zealously abet the 
suspension of the Habeas Corpus — that is, virtually, a sus- 
pension of the whole benefits of law, both as to instruction 
and protection ; who could so cheerfully co-operate to enact 
laws of the most inquisitorial and summary nature ; and 
who could so self-complacently, when in power, avow that 
he and his associates were ready to " exert a vigour beyond 
the law." 

In the next place, though there is a considerable portion 
of important truth in his representation, it is obviously 
truth stated all on one side, and stated with all possible 
exaggeration. It is the argument of an advocate defending 
the cause of a person accused, and with undeniable justice 
accused, of some of the cruel practices in question. For 
had he argued the subject in the impartial spirit required in 
a legislator, he would have admitted, or rather insisted, that 
many modes of cruelty to animals are sufficiently definable 
for specific enactment. Where for instance, should be the 
difficulty of defining the practice of which we have quoted 
the above description from Lord Erskine's speech? It 
would be easy to define many of the modes and degrees of 
cruelty so notorious in the system, as it has been called, of 
our coach travelling ; modes and degrees in judging of which 
both the maker and the executor of the law would receive 
so much assistance from the very tangible circumstances of 
weight of vehicle and loading, and length of stage. There 
would be no very desperate perplexity in adjusting legal 
cognizance of what are called races against time, of the 
amusement of cock-fighting, or that of destroying cocks by 
tying them to a post and throwing sticks at them, of skin- 
ing eels alive, and several other very definable modes of 
cruelty. 

r e 2 




436 ON CBUELTY TO ANIMALS. 

The greater number, however, of the cruelties to which 
it is desirable to extend the power of the law, are probably 
such as the law could designate only in very general terms ; 
many of them consisting in an excessive degree of an 
infliction, or of a compulsion to labour, of which a smaller 
degree would not have been a cruelty — and many consisting 
in such combinations of circumstances as no law can specifi- 
cally provide against. "With respect, therefore, to the 
larger part of its intended operation, the law must be 
content to set forth, with the greatest possible publicity, a 
few general rules; and entrust the penal application of 
these principles in the particular instances, to a magistracy 
or court appointed for the purpose. Now there is no deny- 
ing that to such an adminstration of the proposed law, the 
evils so urgently objected by our senator would in some 
degree be incident. There would be some opportunities 
afforded for the indulgence of a petty, consequential, inter- 
fering disposition, and for atttempting to wreak, under a 
semblance of virtuous feeling, some of the resentments 
which are always existing, less or more, among neighbours, 
in every part of the country. The judges would, from their 
rank, be less liable to receive any deserved share of the 
vindictive application of the law than the class of persons 
most ordinarily arraigned before them. They would not, 
in deliberating and pronouncing, be able to divest them- 
selves entirely of passion : and the adjudgments might in 
some very rare instances carry a greater degree of severity 
than the culprits had been aware they were exposing them- 
selves to incur. 

If the evil sought to be remedied were very slight ; if it 
but consisted in some trifling injury to property, or if the 
alleged offences against humanity went no greater length 
than to hurt the affected sensibility which Mr. Windham 
ridicules so sarcastically in the fine ladies — a legislature 
might very properly hesitate to constitute such a jurisdic- 
tion. But the appeal may be made to all persons of real 
and sober sensibility, whether the evil in question be of so 
trifling an amount. Let any man who has been trained to 
habits of reflection and kindness, and has spent a consider- 
able portion of his time in travelling or in great towns, try 
to recollect all the instances of cruelty he has witnessed, or 



INJURY TO THE MOEAL FEELINGS. 437 

beard related in places where they had recently occurred, 
during the last five or ten years : let him then consider 
how many thousand other persons in England have been 
witnessing each a different series of instances, during the 
same period : let the whole, if it were possible, be brought 
in imagination into one view: — all that has been perpetrated 
on animals in momentary fury ; in deliberate, ingenious 
revenge ; in the pnre unprovoked love of tormenting ; in the 
barbarous carelessness of all feelings of want and pain with 
which animals are peculiarly regarded, after they are com- 
mitted to those (generally hardened miscreants), whose 
business is to reserve or convey them for slaughter ; in the 
slow death of a compulsory labour far beyond any reason- 
able exertion of the animal's strength ; in the 'deficiency of 
needful sustenance, in some instances combined with this 
excess of labour ; and finally, in sanguinary sports, both 
vulgar and genteel. "What an enormous mass of crime this 
collective view charges on the community, to stand to the 
final account of the individuals according to their degrees of 
participation ! 

This, however, is viewing only one part of the evil ; and 
so much crime, considered simply as against the suffering 
animals, is a sufficiently black account for a civilized and 
Christian country. But let one moment's thought be 
directed to the other part of the subject, — the effect of this 
mass of cruelty on the moral feelings of the people. No 
one worth consulting, it may be presumed, will make any 
question whether the feelings of a mind in a, proper state, in 
beholding or thinking of these cruelties, would be pity and 
indignation, not unmingled with horror, in some cases of 
peculiar atrocity. But a great majority of the people of 
our nation, the poor and the rich, the vulgar and the 
polished, the insignificant and — excepting the House of 
Commons — the powerful, can observe and can hear of these 
things without any such feelings whatever. ]S"ow, what can 
be the cause of this insensibility, but our having been 
familiarized to the sight and perpetration of these cruelties, 
and our having always seen them under the sanction of legal 
impunity ?— since, probably, there is cultivation enough in 
this country to diffuse a tolerably general conviction of the 
odiousness of any one sort of flagrant wickedness, unless our 



438 OS CKUELTT TO ANIMALS. 

moral feelings have been depraved by its frequent per- 
petration, beheld or participated, and by its being suffered, 
as a thing too trifling for so serious a cognizance as that of 
the law of the land. It is clear, then, that the cruelty so 
prevalent in our country, and so very lightly thought of by 
the departed statesman, actually has a most hateful influence 
on our moral feelings ; and it is a truth as obvious as it is 
serious, and as it is by governments disregarded, that, 
according to Lord Erskine's preamble, cruel and oppressive 
treatment of animals, is not only "highly unjust and 
immoral," as towards them, "but most pernicious in its 
example, having an evident tendency to harden the heart 
against the natural feelings of humanity." Doubtless the 
evident native propensity of the human mind to cruelty 
leaves but half the existing hard-heartedness with respect to 
the sufferings of animals to the credit of example. But still, 
in order to avoid being compelled to consider human nature 
as essentially quite demoniac, we must ascribe much to this 
depraving source, when we see even persons of condition 
and cultivation — and who are observant of many of the pro- 
prieties of conduct — manifesting the most perfect insensi- 
bility at the sight, for many hours successively, of the 
shattered, feeble condition, the exhausting toil, and the 
pains of direct infliction, of the most generous, patient, and 
useful animals, thus suffering for the convenience, or perhaps 
by the direct order of these very persons : when we see a 
long succession of sets of post-horses, on the road to a 
fashionable watering-place, bathed in sweat and foam, 
panting and almost dying, before a massy carriage, that 
bears the most disgraceful decoration, as in such a case it is, 
of the splendidly emblazoned family arms, surmounted 
possibly with a coronet or even a mitre ; when we hear of 
the horses all dropping down in the yard of the hotel, after 
bringing to the rendezvous of dissipation an individual of 
the first rank in the land ; when we hear, as it has happened 
to us to hear, persons of the sacred profession ridiculing, as 
an extravagant sort of affectation of sensibility, a very 
soberly expressed commiseration of the habitual sufferings 
of our stage and hackney-coach horses ; when we see that 
papas and mammas, with the precious addition of aunts, 
cousins, and friends, will suffer children within their sight 



INSTANCES OE INHUMANITY. 439 

to glut the native cruelty so justly ascribed to children by 
Dr. Johnson, with the sufferings of insects, young birds, or 
any little animals they dare torment, and will make you 
understand that you are rather impertinent to hint the 
impropriety of such a permission, or to rescue one of the 
victims ; and when we hear — to add but one count to an 
indictment that might with perfect justice be made twenty 
times as long — when we hear persons of all imaginable 
respectability, refinement, good breeding, and so forth, and 
who yesterday went over their prayer-book at church with 
the most edifying decorum — alleging perhaps some slight 
pretended difference in the delicacy of the appearance of the 
meat on their tables, as a quite sufficient argument against 
any method of causing the instantaneous death of the animal 
to be killed, by shooting through the head or otherwise : and 
this too in London — where the certain knowledge that on 
an average thousands of animals are slaughtered for food 
daily within a very few miles of any one of the habitations, 
might assist to aggravate in a reflective mind the idea of the 
comparatively protracted anguish suffered in the usual mode 
of slaughter^ in London — of which good city, however, 
nearly all the people would at last suspect the legislature of 
insanity if it were possible it could be caught deliberating 
on an enactment to lessen, to reduce almost to nothing, this 
collective, enormous measure of anguish, by enforcing the 
most expeditious mode of causing death. We cannot con- 
template this general barbarity of mind, showing itself in so 
many ways in this civilized land, without being constrained 
to attribute a considerable portion of it to the influence of 
that prevalent example which tends to destroy or rather 
preclude sensibility, not simply by making us familiar with 
the sight and practice of cruelty, but by also forming and 
fixing imperceptibly in our minds, a contemptuous estimate 
of the pains and pleasures of the brute animals ; an estimate 
to which the law very powerfully contributes by its silence : 
it being almost impossible to make the popular mind connect 
any idea of very aggravated guilt with things of which, even 
in their greatest excess, the law takes no notice, if those 
things are of the substantial, tangible nature of actions. "We 
are thus practically taught from our very infancy, that the 
pleasurable and painful sensations of animals are not worth 



440 ON CETJELTT TO ANIMALS. 

our care ; that it is not of the smallest consequence what 
they are made to suffer, so that they are not rendered less 
serviceable to us by the suffering ; that if we can even draw 
amusement from inflicting pain on them it is all very well ; 
that in short they have no rights as sentient beings, existing 
for their own sakes as well as for ours. "With respect then 
to one whole department of morality — and that too extend- 
ing in contact with a very large part of the economy of life 
— the mind of the greater proportion of the people of this 
country is kept by a continual process in a state of extreme 
depravation, deficient by one whole class of indispensable 
moral sentiments. This depravation would constitute a 
dreadful amount of evil, even if the brute tribes were 
exclusively the objects of its operation. But how foolish it 
would be to imagine that this insensibility to the sufferings 
of brutes can fail to lessen tho sympathy due to human 
beings. It will be sure to make its effect on the mind per- 
ceptible, in the little reluctance with which pain will be 
inflicted on them, and in a very light account of the evils to 
which they may be doomed. So long as Mr. "Windham is 
remembered, it will not be forgotten with what easy cool- 
ness he could talk in the senate of our troops on the 
Continent, being " killed off" If instances were pretended 
to be cited of persons who are habitually unfeeling or 
actively cruel towards animals, being notwithstanding kind 
to their relatives, neighbours, and friends, we should ask 
very confidently whether whim and caprice be not visibly 
prevalent amidst that kindness — whether it may not be 
perceived to be uniformly subordinate to a decided selfish- 
ness — and whether slight causes are not enough to convert 
it into resentment and violence. "We have not the smallest 
faith in the benevolence or friendship of a man who, in a 
journey to see his friends or nearest relatives (if they are 
not dangerously ill or in any other extremity), will have a 
pair of jaded post-horses forced to their utmost speed, or will 
whip and spur to the same painful exertion a poor hired 
hack, or a hard-worked animal of his own, just to reach his 
friends, as he calls them, an hour or two the sooner. 

Unless a somewhat comprehensive view is taken of the 
evil as it is actually existing under these several forms, — a 
vast and diversified portion of suffering needlessly and often 



DISCEETIONAET JURISDICTION. 441 

wantonly inflicted — a dreadful measure of crime in some 
sense sanctioned — and a hardening operation on the moral 
feelings — a man can have no just idea of the strength of the 
reasons for which the friends of humanity wish for some such 
interposition of authority as this speech was made to pre- 
vent ; and he may let Mr. Windham persuade him that the 
evil, existing indeed in no very serious degree in this country 
(for so the orator had the hardihood to represent), is not of 
a kind to make it worth while to encounter the difficulties 
incident to the execution of a law for its repression. But 
those difficulties will probably appear to form very insufli- 
cient arguments against making at least a trial of such a 
law, to a man of enlarged benevolence even, though of less 
than poetic sensibility, if he takes an extensive view of the 
cruelties of which he will easily verify the existence. 

One of the chief of those arguments is, from the excep- 
tionable character of a discretionary jurisdiction. It is, 
however, observed expressly by himself, that " such juris- 
dictions must of necessity perhaps exist in many cases, and, 
where the necessity can be shown, must be submitted to," 
— though, as he justly adds, " they are not on that account 
the less to be deprecated, or more fit to be adopted where 
their establishment must be matter of choice," (p. 14). 
Now, a very humane man may be allowed to think that if 
the class of crimes in question cannot be brought under the 
coercion requisite to prevent or punish without such a juris- 
diction, there cannot be "many cases" in which a stronger 
necessity can be proved. And let it be considered that the 
magistracy appointed for the purpose would have a province 
which, taken in the whole, would be far more defined than 
that of almost any other constituted authority ; its peculiar 
nature marking it off so distinctly from all other depart- 
ments and subjects of jurisdiction. While, therefore, there 
might be within this department various difficulties of dis- 
crimination, and consequently some errors committed, those 
difficulties and errors would inconveniently affect the 
community only to a certain very limited length: the 
tribunal for cruelty to animals would have nothing to do, for 
instance, with Jacobinism — with charges or questions about 
which Mr. Windham was peculiarly anxious that the good 
people of England should never be harassed. These 



442 



ON" CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 



tribunals would in their commencement, it may be pre- 
sumed, proceed with solicitous deliberation; and thus a 
number of well-judged decisions would become at once a 
useful precedent to themselves, and a promulgation to the 
people of the rules intended to be observed in such cases as 
the law could not have specifically provided for : so that a 
little time would do away with a considerable part of the evil 
represented by Mr. "Windham as an inseparable attendant, 
and justly deprecated so far as it is an inseparable attendant, 
on the discretionary application of a general law — that is, 
its "requiring men to live by an unknown rule," and 
"inflicting pains and penalties upon conditions which no 
man is able previously to ascertain." A short series of the 
proclaimed and compared adjudgments of a few of the 
tribunals, might easily give the people at the very least as 
settled a standard of the degrees and penalties of this class 
of offences, as that with which they are furnished respecting 
the various other classes by our criminal code; a code of 
which so vast a proportion of the enactments are considered 
by the authorities administering the law, as totally unfit to 
be enforced — and which therefore leaves so very large a part 
of the general administration of justice to be purely an 
exercise of that very discretion which the orator affects so 
much to dread. It is obvious, too, that the danger which in 
relation to this one subject he insists on so much, — of the 
judges being influenced by passion, may just as properly be 
urged against that exceedingly wide and unquestioned dis- 
cretion in our criminal courts. But the danger of the 
judges being impelled by passion to decisions of excessive 
severity, will appear exceedingly small when the very low 
general state of our moral sentiments regarding the suffer- 
ings of animals is taken into account ; even cultivated men, 
as we have seen, often betraying a strange want of sensi- 
bility on this point. Indeed Mr. "Windham himself, in 
another part of the speech, represents that if it were not so, 
the desired reform might be effected without the interference 
of the legislature. Unless it were to be expected that our 
English gentlemen, as soon as they felt themselves invested 
with their new oflice should melt into a most unwonted kind 
of sympathy, the probability would be that the offenders 
cited before them might escape somewhat too easily ; and 



IMAGINABT DIITICTTLTIES OF LEGISLATION. 443 

that, speaking generally, the judges would only become 
adequately severe through an enlargement of their virtuous 
feelings, which would at the same time make them anxious 
to be just in that severity. 

It is not to be denied that the appointed courts or magis-' 
trates would have occasion for their utmost discrimination 
to ascertain the true nature of the acts charged before them 
— to distinguish wanton cruelty from impositions, or inflic- 
tions necessitated by unavoidable circumstances — to obtain 
proof zvJio is the real or chief offender — and to discern when 
an accuser may be guilty of malicious misrepresentation. 
But Lord Erskine has shown that all this is perfectly 
analogous to what forms a very large share of the ordinary 
business of the courts of law, in which the prosecutions for 
cruel treatment of apprentices, for assaults, for slander, for 
trespasses, &c. &c, involve exactly the same sort of difficul- 
ties. He will not, indeed, allow them to be called 
difficulties ; declaring for himself, with an appeal to the 
experience also of his learned brethren, that he has known 
hardly any causes of this nature in which the truth did not 
very soon make itself palpable to the court. And, since in 
the course of so many causes, perplexity, fallacy, and malice, 
under all their imaginable modes, have generally failed to 
embarrass the court for any long time, it is very reasonably 
inferred that in cases of alleged cruelty to animals it cannot 
generally be impossible to ascertain the truth. To be sure, 
the keenness of "Westminster Hall cannot be spread all over 
the country, and conferred on each magistrate along with 
his patent of office : but it must not be conceded to Mr. 
Windham's implied judgment of the faculties of our English 
gentlemen, that they would not be able, with the accuser, 
the accused, and the witnesses before them in open daylight 
— and very often before dinner — to make a tolerable estimate 
of the characters and the statements ; when they had looks, 
tones, narratives, replies to all the questions they chose to 
put, sometimes the injured animals, and often the known 
characters of the persons, all placed fairly in their view. A 
very few exposed and stigmatized instances of malicious 
accusation, or purely impertinent, consequential inter- 
ference, would go far towards putting an end to that kind 
of injustice ; as none but the most worthless persons in a 



444 ON CBTTELTY TO ANIMALS. 

neighbourhood, persons who may be easily known for such, 
would be willing to expose themselves to be convicted of it. 
With Lord Erskine, therefore, we think that on the whole 
the proposed law is " more open to the charge of inefficacy 
than of vexation." 

But the objection on which the most zealous part of Mr. 
"Windham's oratory is employed, is the iniquitous distinc- 
tion which, he asserts, any law of the kind would practically 
make, and which the law, as laid down in the proposed bill, 
does formally make, between the rich and the poor. It was 
perfectly in character that on this topic our statesman should 
take fire ; and on the present occasion it burns so fiercely as 
to threaten the whole constitution of parliament : for his 
Speech declares, that though he had been, from conviction, 
a steady opponent of parliamentary reform, the passing of 
the proposed law would be enough to reverse all his opinions, 
and decide him for a grand change in the constitution of the 
House of Commons. Part of thi3 inequality which he 
predicts in the operation of the law, is the failure of its 
execution against the rich in cases strictly analogous to those 
in which it would be executed against the lower orders. 
Now though it is truly an odious thing in a community, 
that the rich should be tolerated in vices which are punished 
in the poor, yet a moralist may be allowed to wish that the 
atrocious vices may be extirpated from among the poor, even 
though the rich should resolve, as their own peculiar privilege, 
to retain them. And, since jurisdiction must always be 
substantially in the hands of the more wealthy class, we 
would rather, upon the whole, that the very '"squire," who 
last week, "rode his hunter to death" in a fox-chace, and 
on whom, notwithstanding, the law against cruelty would, 
according to Mr. Windham, fail to be executed, should be 
the magistrate to punish a man of the "lower orders" for 
forcing a poor debilitated horse along with a cart-load of 
stones of double the reasonable weight, till it falls down 
and can rise no more, — than that this and other similar bar- 
barians should be allowed to do this again. What would 
become of law and justice in general, if we were to be nice 
about the characters of thief-takers and executioners ? It 
might, indeed, be hoped, one should think, that some few 
"'squires" might be found in the different parts of England, 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN EICH AND POOR. 445 

who do not ride their hunters to death, and who, if in office, 
would be found to have the temerity to execute the law 
against those 'squires that do. It might also be thought not 
totally romantic, especially in humble innocents like us, 
unacquainted with the wealthy and the genteel people of 
the land, to hope that the 'squire, who has probably been 
educated at the university, and has the clergyman to dine 
with him every week, would, when invested with a commis- 
sion to enforce authoritatively among his neighbours, both 
a specific rule and a general principle against cruelty — 
bethink himself of the propriety of not perpetrating noto- 
rious cruelties himself, in the form of either riding his 
hunter, or causing a pair of post-horses to be driven to 
death. But still, if such surmises and hopes are founded in 
a perfect ignorance of the character of the wealthy, polished, 
college-bred gentlemen of this country ; if we must be 
compelled to accept Mr. Windham's implied estimate of 
them ; and if, therefore, it would be in vain to seek for any 
of them to be constituted magistrates to take cognizance of 
cruelty who would not perpetrate the grossest cruelties 
themselves, — still even though all this were so, we would 
rather that only one cruelty should be committed than that 
ten should ; and would allow the wealthy and cultivated 
men to commit one, as a reward for the exercise of their 
humanity in preventing the other nine. 

It is at the same time extremely mortifying to patriotic 
feelir>gs of a better kind than those of mere English pride, 
to have from so acute an observer, and so indulgent a 
moralist as Mr, Windham, such a testimony against the 
humanity of the more cultivated class of our countrymen 
and countrywomen, as is conveyed in the substance of this 
Speech. The orator most pointedly insists that if they really 
had any tolerable share of the humanity to which it is pre- 
tended this law is designed to give efficacy, they might give 
it efficacy without the assistance of such a law. And in 
exculpation of the immediate agents of cruelty, such post- 
boys, and even the proprietors of post-horses, he drives 
home the charge — a charge of much severer quality, in fact, 
than there are any expressions to indicate it was in his 
opinion — to the superior agent and criminal, "his honour," 
for whose sake the cruelty is committed. 



446 ON CEUELTY TO ANIMALS. 

" "Whose fault is it, in nineteen cases out of twenty, that these 
sufferings are incurred ? The traveller drives up in haste, his 
servant having half-killed one post-horse in riding forward to 
announce his approach. The horses are brought out ; they are 
weak, spavined, galled, hardly dry from their last stage. What 
is the dialogue that ensues 1 Does the traveller offer to stop on 
his journey, or even to wait till the horses can be refreshed ? 
Such a thought never enters his head ; he swears at the landlord 
and threatens never to come again to his house, because he 
expects to go only seven miles an hour, when he had hoped to go 
nine. But when the landlord has assured him that the horses, 
however bad in their appearance, will carry his honour very well, 
and has directed the ' lads' to 'make the best of their way,' the 
traveller's humanity is satisfied, and he hears with perfect com- 
posure and complacency the cracking whips of the postillions 
only intimating to them, by-the-bye, that if they do not bring 
him in in time, they shall not receive a farthing." — P. 21. 

This supposed instance was undoubtedly meant and con- 
sidered by Mr. "Windham as a fair sample of the humane 
feelings prevaling in that part of society of which the indi- 
viduals are of consequence enough to be preceded and 
announced in their movements, by servants on horses " half- 
killed " to execute the important office ; and it is mortifying 
to be compelled to acknowledge that whatever else be as- 
cribed or denied to Mr. Windham, it would be ridiculous to 
question his knowledge of the world. But it is really very 
curious that such a description should form part of a serious 
argument against a law for the prevention of cruelty. How 
does he apply such a fact to such a purpose ? It is thus. 
He is representing that " those persons of the lower orders" 
who would most commonly be found the immediate perpetra- 
tors of cruelty, especially of the kind here described, are very 
much at the will of their betters, such as " his honour," and 
actually commit much of the alleged cruelty at their authori- 
tative dictate ; and that, therefore, if " his honour," and such 
as "his honour," chose to alter their will and dictates in this 
matter, they could, without any interference of the law, pre- 
vent that cruelty. Why yes ; and, with submission, it may 
perhaps be questioned whether the necessity of a law in any 
case whatever is not owing precisely to the circumstance that 
people have not the will to do right without it. " His honour ' ' 
is evidently not disposed to save the legislature the odium 



SUPPOSED CASE OF CEUELTT. 447 

and the pain of exerting their power — a power so rarely and 
reluctantly exerted — of enacting one more restrictive and 
penal statute. " But then," says Mr. Windham " since 'his 
honour, ' is in this case the real cause of the cruelty (while 
yet, not being the direct perpetrator, he cannot be touched 
by the law) , you will commit a flagrant injustice in making a 
law to punish the landlord and the post-boy." To this it 
must be replied, that without a law directed against the land- 
lord and post-boy, we cannot, according to Mr. Windham's 
own statement of the case, reach " his honour," to put a re- 
straint on his detestable barbarity ; and that by means of such 
a law we can put that restraint. For if the landlord has just 
received an authenticated copy of a heavy penal statute 
against cruelties like those here described, he will be very 
certain not to suffer the poor horses under such circum- 
stances, to be goaded out of his stable, however " his honour" 
may storm and " swear." And if this important gentleman, 
baronet, or lord, as the case may be, should threaten to go to 
another inn, the landlord will laugh, and tell him that the 
statute is probably in equal force at the other inn. And also 
when the " lads " set off, the landlord will warn them that it 
is at their peril they take their consequential luggage at any 
such rate as " nine miles an hour," in whatever style the said 
luggage may command, growl, or threaten. As to his threat- 
ening them with " not a farthing," it is obvious that one 
point to be provided for in the proposed legal regulation 
would be that, at any rate the whole of their reward should 
not depend on the choice of the traveller who would propor- 
tion its degree upward exactly to the degree of cruelty. We 
should think the proprietor of the horses would be exceedingly 
glad of this statute, as the best protection of himself and his 
horses against the imperative insolence of such persons as "his 
honour." If he has retained the very slightest sentiment of 
what we, by courtesy to our nature, are pleased to call 
humanity, or if he has any reasonable care of the animals, 
even as mere working machines, which it cannot be good 
policy, as to his own pecuniary interest, to work down and 
destroy so fast, he will be happy to plead the inhibition of 
this statute ; if he can be so perverse a wretch as to be 
indifferent at once to the sufferings of the animals and the 
calculation of his own advantage, he will deserve to stand the 



448 ON CEUELTY TO ANIMALS. 

sole respondent, for all the cruelty committed between the 
traveller and the post-boy, and to suffer the utmost punish- 
ment awarded by the law. To notice again that one landlord 
would have no inducement to comply with the unreasonable 
demands of travellers on the ground of competition of 
interests with other landlords, whom our orator's argument 
supposes ready to give the barbarous accommodation which 
this one might refuse, would be very superfluous but for 
the gross unfairness, as to this point, of the passage we have 
quoted — and of another (p. 18), in which the traveller is 
represented as " hinting to the post-boy that he means to 
dine at the next stage, and that if he does not bring him in 
in time, he will never go to his master's house again." The 
acute maker of this speech saw clearly, that his threatened 
transfer of custom from one proprietor of post-horses to 
another, was the essential basis of hi3 argument against the 
application of a penal law to that proprietor. His interest, 
our orator argues, necessitates him to be servile and cruel, 
since by disobliging the traveller he would lose employment 
— the traveller instantly and ever after going to another inn, 
where no such humane regulation will retard him. Now 
what words can do justice to the mockery of maintaining an 
apparently serious argument on a ground so palpably taken 
from under the reasoner by the nature of the case ? It being 
unavoidably present to hi3 thoughts at the time, and it 
having been put in the most pointed form of words in Lord 
Erskine's printed speech, that such competition and transfers 
must be precluded by a law known to be equally restrictive 
on all the owners of post-horses. Can there be two places 
in England where a man could talk in this way without 
laughing out at his audience for gravely listening to him. 

In prosecuting his argument, that people of wealth and 
rank might, if they pleased, do much without the assistance 
of law, for the prevention of cruelty, the orator bestows 
some poignant sarcasms on hypocritical pretensions to sensi- 
bility ; and he will be cheered with animation by those who 
are in earnest for that prevention, at each vindictive sentence 
applied to such personages as those described in the fol- 
lowing passages : — 

" One of the favourite instances [in exemplification of cruelty] 
in the fashionable female circles, as they are called, of this town, 






CBTTELTY OF FASHIONABLE PEOPLE. 449 

(and who appear, by-the-bye, to have been very diligently can- 
vassed), are the cases with which the members of these societies 
have been continually shocked, of coachmen whipping their 
horses in public places ; one instance, by the way, by no means 
of magnitude enough to call for the interference of the legis- 
lature. But be its magnitude what it will, why must the legis- 
lature be called in ? Are there no means (sufficient probably 
for punishing the offence adequately in each instance, but cer- 
tainly for preventing the practice) in the power possessed by 
masters and mistresses ? But apply to any of these ladies, and 
satisfy them, after much difficulty, that their coachman was the 
most active and the most in the wrong, in the struggle which 
caused so much disturbance at the last Opera, and the answer 
probably would be : ' Oh ! to be sure it is very shocking ; but 
then John is so clever in a crowd ! the other night at Lady 
Such-a-one's, when all the world were perishing in the passage, 
waiting for their carriages, ours was up in an instant, and we 
were at Mrs. Such-a-one's half an hour before any one else. 
We should not know what to do if we were to part with him.' 
Was it the coachman here who most deserved punishment, or 
was it for the parties here described to call for a law V* — P. 19. 

In an assembly of confessedly unequalled rank in point of 
integrity, there evidently could not be a more effectual 
way for putting a question in a train for speedy deci- 
sion, than by stating it so that the decision as on the 
one side or on the other, shall appear to be identical 
with the honesty or the hypocrisy of that assembly. Our 
orator therefore has put his grand objection against the 
law as proposed by Lord Erskine, — its making an invidious 
and iniquitous distinction between the higher and lower 
orders, into this argumentum ad hominem form. The bill, 
he represents to the assembly, not merely proposes certain 
specific laws against certain specified modes of cruelty, but 
promulgates a grand abstract principle against cruelty to 
animals in general. Well : what are usually called sports, 
such as hunting, shooting, and fishing, are as decidedly of 
the nature of cruelty as anything in the world can be, and 
therefore " cannot, one should think (we are using his own 
words) be allowed an instant ; as being, more than any 
others, in the very line and point-blank aim of the statute, 
and having nothing to protect them but that which ought* 
in justice and decency to be the strongest reason against 
them ; namely, that they are the mere sports of the rich." 



450 ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 

But, behold ! this bill, founding itself, and taking to itself 
the highest credit for being founded, on this grand general 
principle, leaves and sanctions the rich in the most perfect 
possession of all these cruel sports. And who is it that 
is to pass this bill into a law ? " "Why," says he, " a 
house of hunters and shooters :" and after suggesting to 
them what a fine figure their legislation would make in the 
world, when the newspapers should come to record in one 
column a string of commitments under the " Cruelty Bill," 
and in another, all the savage incidents of a desperate 
chace, under the head of " Sporting Intelligence," he 
exclaims : — 

" Was it possible that men could stand the shame of such 
statements, — that this house which tolerated such sports, nay, 
which claimed them, as the pecular privilege of the class to 
which it belonged, a house of hunters and shooters, should, 
while they left these untouched, be affecting to take the brute 
creation under their protection ; and be passing ' bills for the 
punishment of every carter or driver whom an angry passenger 
should accuse of chastising his horses with over- severity." " It 
was in vain to attempt to disguise the fact, that if, with such a 
preamble (as Lord Erskine'sj on our statutes, and with acts 
passed in consequence to punish the lower classes for any cruelty 
inflicted upon animals, we continued to practice and to reserve 
in a great measure to ourselves the sports of hunting, shooting, 
and fishing, we must exhibit ourselves as the most hardened and 
unblushing hypocrites that ever shocked the feelings of mankind." 
Pp. 25, 26. 

"With great dexterity and success this assailant of the 
new scheme of legislation cuts away the line of distinction 
by which Lord Erskine had endeavoured to save the decorum 
of the legislature, while it should be excluding a large 
proportion of the animal tribes from the protection of a 
bill professing to proceed on a general principle of humanity, 
by calling those excluded animals the "unreclaimed," or 
ferce natures. " "Why," says Mr. "Windham, " because they 
did not ask man's protection, were they to be liable in 
consequence to be persecuted and tormented by him ? 
On the contrary, if he did nothing for their good, he ought 
the rather to be required to do nothing for their harm." 
It was, in truth, a matter of no small perplexity, in pro- 
posing a solemn legislative recognition of a principle 



451 

condemning cruelty to animals in general, to explain to the 
persons who were to make this recognition, how they might 
do it in perfect consistency with the retention of a legal 
right to seek sport in the infliction of pain. . Perhaps on 
this part of the subject the mover of the bill was less fully 
prepared than on the other parts, to meet that extreme 
moral scrupulosity which he could not be unaware he should 
find awake to every point of consistency. We really do not 
see how the proposition could be better introduced than in 
some such manner as the following : " There is a great 
deal of cruelty exercised on brute animals in this country, 
which we certainly have the power in some degree to 
prevent ; and I will endeavour to show that it is therefore 
our duty to do so. If, however, we adopt a formal measure 
on the subject, the assertion of something in the form of a 
general principle condemnatory of cruelty, seems highly 
proper as the basis of any particular enactments, and may 
also be useful by exciting thought and impressing the moral 
sense. Then, as to the particular enactments, let us try 
how many we can agree upon. You and I know very well 
that the pursuits of the sportsman are extremely cruel ; 
but you and I also know very well that it would be utterly 
in vain for me to propose to this assembly any restrictions on 
those sports. I am sorry for the appearance of inconsis- 
tency that will arise from this exception, especially as it is 
an exception made so insidiously in your own favour. But 
in a matter so urgent, it is better that something should be 
done, with whatever defects or inconsistency, than that 
nothing should. I think the enormous sum of pain that 
may be prevented by such regulations as we probably might 
concur to make, a far more important consideration, than 
the uniformity of the character of our legislation. Retain, 
if it must be so, your asserted right and your practice of 
hunting, shooting, and fishing ; but pray do not go to fancy 
it an indispensable point of beneficence to the people, to 
secure to them also an inviolable unlimited privilege to be 
cruel, in another way." 

It remains only to make one slight observation on the 
sort of consistency so carefully maintained in this Speech 
between the professions of regret for the sufferings of 
animals, and certain other professions. Near the beginning 

g & 2 



452 ON CBTJELTT TO ANIMALS. 

of this article, we called these compassionate professions 
cant — whether justly or not, will appear immediately. After 
adverting to Lord Erskine's melancholy exhibition of 
cruelties and victims, (an exhibition in a great measure 
confined to horses, asses, and cattle, appointed for slaugh- 
ter,) our orator, as we have seen, most strenuously insists, 
that the cruelties perpetrated by the vulgar on these 
animals are equalled, if not exceeded, by those that take 
place in the aristocratic amusements of hunting, &c. &c. 
Of course the senator expects it to be understood that he 
regrets also the sufferings of the victims of these amuse- 
ments. But lest there should be the possibility of a doubt 
as to his feelings in this case, he takes care to say that, — 

" He legged not to be understood as condemning the sports to 
which he had been alluding, and much less as charging with 
cruelty all those who took delight in them, cruel as the acts 
themselves undoubtedly were." " Though no sportsman him- 
self, he should lament the day, should it ever arrive, when from 
false refinement and mistaken humanity, what are called field- 
sports (or sports indeed of almost any kind) should be abolished 
in this country, or fall into disuse. So far from arraigning 
those who followed them, his doctrine had ever been, that strange 
as it might seem, cruel sports did not make cruel people" — P. 27. 

"We are, if possible, more pleased than even any of our 
readers will be, to have reached the end of these obser- 
vations. Nothing could have made us feel it pardonable to 
extend them so disproportionately, and so very far beyond 
the first intention, but the notorious fact, that the important 
branch of morality to which they relate, is not only dis- 
regarded in practice, by numberless reputable sort of mem- 
bers of the community, but also very criminally neglected 
in the instruction of parents, tutors, and preachers. It 
seemed worth while to examine a little, how far the 
persons so practising, and so neglecting, would do wisely to 
seek to draw anything like sanction or extenuation from 
the opinions of the departed senator, or the decisions of 
the assembly in which this speech purports to have been 
delivered. 



453 



SOUTHEY'S "CT7ESE OE KEHAMA. 

The Curse of Kehama. By Kobert Southey. 4to. 1811. 

In endeavouring to eome as near as we can to a right 
judgment on this performance, it will perhaps be best to 
let a brief abstract of the story precede the substance of the 
remarks we may venture to make. If they should happen 
to intermingle with this analysis more than we at present 
intend, we shall only be so much the less tedious in the 
latter part of the article. 

It may first be noticed, that the time in which the events 
forming the action of the poem took place, is not brought 
within the reach of conjecture, by any circumstances bearing 
a relation to any known period of history. The action 
bursts on us without introduction or preparation, proceeds 
in perfect disconnexion from all contemporary agency, and 
in a moment shuts up, in a manner that not only does not 
leave a possibility of guessing at a sequel, but gives the 
impression that there can he no sequel. The magnificent 
and monstrous fable comes up to our view and goes down 
again, just after the manner of one of those temporary 
islands, which have been sometimes thrown up by submarine 
volcanoes, and having risen with tremendous violence and 
fulmination, and exhibited a fiery and portentous appearance 
for a short time, have sunk at once, and left all the space 
mere sea, as it was before. Indeed the story, though con- 
sisting, for perhaps the greater part, in a representation of 
human action and feelings, is so perfectly foreign to any 
thing actually and simply human, that there would have 
been absurdity in affecting to connect it with real events, 
and to give it a place in chronology. It is enough for the 
reader to be certain as to the two extreme dates of the 
period, somewhere in which these matters happened. The 
crimes and miseries here described, are evidence that the 
transactions related must have taken place within the Cali- 
yuga, the fourth or iron age of the Hindoos, which com- 
menced about five thousand years ago; and it should be 
equally evident, we think, that they cannot have taken place 
so lately as the middle of the last century; certainly not sine© 



454 sotjthey's curse or kehama. 

the battle of Plassey ; because it is impossible that such a 
person as Kehama should have been in India at that time, 
without coming in collision with Colonel Clive, who would 
have saved Seeva the trouble of interfering to put him 
down. 

The poem opens with a grand funeral procession through 
the streets of the " imperial city," supposed to be in some 
part of Hindostan, and the capital of the dominions of 
Kehama, who bears the apparently inadequate denomination 
of "Rajah." It was the funeral of Arvalan, his son, who, 
in attempting violence to the beautiful and virtuous 
daughter of a peasant, had been struck dead at one blow, 
inflicted in the agony of desperation by her father. The 
procession which conveys and attends the dead miscreant to 
the pile prepared without the city, is very long, is in the 
night, has the gloomy splendour of an almost infinite num- 
ber of torches, roars and clatters with a dreadful noise of all 
manner of vociferation, from the whole vast multitude com- 
bined with all big-sounding instruments, and is described 
with eminent vigour of conception and language ; an 
effectual hint of which may be given, by citing the lines 
descriptive of the appearance of the dead prince. 

" In vain ye thunder on his ear the name ! 

Would ye awake the dead ? 
Borne upright in his palankeen, 

There Arvalan is seen ! 
A glow is on his face, — a lively red ; 

It is the crimson canopy 
Which o'er his cheek the reddening shade hath shed. 

He moves, — he nods his head, — 
But the motion comes from the bearers' tread, 

As the body, borne aloft in state, 
Sways with the impulse of its own dead weight." — P. 4. 

Kehama comes in view, for the first time, following im- 
mediately his dead son, but not calling his name, nor joining 
the funeral song. With great propriety he is made to be 
silent, abstracted from the tumult, pomp, and thundering 
clamour, and grimly occupied with his own thoughts ; while 
the beholders were secretly gratified to see their tyrant a 
sufferer, and not one person in all the prodigious multitude 
really lamented the fate of his son. After him come the 



ANALYSIS OE THE POEM. 455 

two wives of Arvalan, "young Azla," and "young Nealliny," 
prepared, the one voluntarily, the other by constraint, to 
share with him the burning pile. They are attended by 
their relations, and followed by a train of richly decorated 
slaves, the appointed victims of the same fire. The two 
persons that come next, guarded by bowmen, are the objects 
of most extreme curiosity, and the only objects of sympathy, 
to the spectators. These are the peasant and his daughter, 
named, in a taste sufficiently odd, Ladurlad and Kailyal. 
The procession, reaches the bank of the river ; the bier is 
set down near the funeral pile, which is built of sandal- 
wood, and bestrewed with myrrh and ambergris ; the music 
and outcry cease ; a ceremony is performed in the way of 
ascertaining that the body is really dead ; it is absolutely 
dead ; then 

« With a doubling peal and deeper blast 

The tambours and the trumpets sound on high, 
And with a last and loudest cry 
They call on Arvalan. " 

Azla calmly takes her seat on the funeral pile, and sustains 
the head of Arvalan in her lap : Nealliny, who has not yet 
been one month a bride, is forced to the fatal situation, and 
bound to the dead man, in spite of her struggles, the desperate 
agony of which is described with a frightful vividness. 
Kehama's torch, followed by those of the Brahmins, sets 
fire to the pile, which is built in a kind of pit, so as to be 
below the level of the ground ; the band of victims join in a 
frantic dance round it, and one by one fall into the devour- 
ing flames. The clamour and instruments of the furious 
rout at length sink into silence, and leaving the roaring of 
the fire alone to be heard. 

Amidst this stillness, more hideous than even the preceding 
tempest of noise and madness, Xehama performs alone, 
some funeral rights, and calls on his son. Unexpectedly 
Arvalan answers and appears to him, but in such a manner 
as to be unheard and unseen by any one else. They hold a 
mournful and infernal dialogue. The son expostulates 
upbraidingly with his father, whom the poet makes him call 
" Almighty," for not having performed something of more 
value to his expelled and unhappy spirit, than this vain 



456 sotjthey's cuese oe kehama. 

funeral pomp. Kehama retorts in anger, reproaching him 
for the folly of contriving to lose, by means of a stake and a 
peasant's arm, a life which had been " spell-secured" against 
disease, fire, and sword. The son answers in deep com- 
plaints of misery, and implores his father to exert his irre- 
sistible influence to invest his sensitive spirit with a security 
against the malignant impressions of the elements, to fix 
him in a favourable condition in defiance of the gods, to 
endow him with power, and to give him the gratification of 
witnessing a fearful revenge — of which delight Kehama 
promises him he shall have his fill. 

" So as he spake, a glow of dreadful pride 
Inflamed his cheek, — with quick and angry stride 

He moved toward the pile, 
And raised his hand to hush the crowd, and cried, 
Bring forth the murderer !" — P. 15. 

Ladurlad comes forward obedient to the call. But Kailyal 
seizes and clings to a wooden image of Marriataly, the 
favourite Hindoo goddess of the poor, grappling with such 
almost preternatural force, that the guards cannot drag her 
from it. And here comes a piece of gross impiety. The 
Christian poet (unless the appellation is really meant to be 
disclaimed) formally and seriously puts himself in the atti- 
tude of a devout Pagan, and in bis own person apostrophizes 
this member of the Indian pantheon, in language of rever- 
ence and kindness. 

" Didst thou, Marriataly, see their strife ? 

In pity didst thou see the suffering maid 1 
Or was thine anger kindled, that rude hands 

Assailed thy holy image 1 — for behold 

The holy image shakes ! " — P. 16. 

The bank of the river, where this deadly struggle is main- 
tained, gives way ; and the idol, and its protegee, and her 
savage assailants, are all flung into the deep stream. Ladur- 
lad remains to receive the concentrated wrath of the " Man- 
Almighty," as Kehama is gravely styled — not now by 
Arvalan, who might be supposed thus to apply the title of 
divinity consistently with his Pagan principles, but by the 
poet himself, with a scandalous acceptance of those prin- 



THE CTJESE. 457 

ciples. Having stood fixed for some time, in silence, and 
with total disregard to the few pathetic expressions by which 
the victim implores lenity, the tyrant pronounces a curse, in 
the following terms :— 

" I charm thy life 
From the weapons of strife, 
From stone and from wood, 
From fire and from flood, 
From the serpent's tooth, 
And the beasts of blood : 
From Sickness I charm thee, 
And Time shall not harm thee ; 
But Earth which is mine 
Its fruits shall deny thee ; 
And Water shall hear me, 
And know thee and fly thee ; 
And the Winds shall not touch thee 
When they pass by thee, 
And the dews shall not wet thee, 
When they fall nigh thee : 
And thou shalt seek Death 
To release thee in vain ; 
Thou shalt live in thy pain, 
While Kehama shall reign 
With a fire in thy heart, 
And a fire in thy brain ; 
And Sleep shall obey me, 

And visit thee never, 
And the Curse shall be on thee 
For ever and ever." — Pp. 18, 19. 

The incongruity between the cantering, jingling versifica- 
tion of this anathema, and its formidable import, and still 
more the portentous aspect and dreadful attributed power 
of the personage who utters it, is too obvious to require 
remark. 

An instantaneous shock through the frame and soul of 
Ladurlad evinces the efficacy of the curse. He remains 
awhile fixed to the spot, in a state of mind partaking both 
of stupefaction and dreadful consciousness ; but the spectacle 
will be best exhibited in the poet*s own exquisitely descrip- 
tive lines : — 

" There, where the Curse had stricken him, 
There stood the miserable man, 



458 southey's cttkse op kehama. 

There stood Ladurlad, with loose-hanging arms, 
And eyes of idiot wandering. 
Was it a dream ? alas ! 
He heard the river flow, 
He heard the crumbling of the pile, 
He heard the wind which showered 
The thin white ashes round. 
There motionless he stood, 
As if he hoped it were a dream, 
And feared to move, lest he should prove 
The actual misery ; 
And still at times he met Kehama's eye, 
Kehama's eye that fastened on him still." — P. 19. 

"We have made this quotation, partly in order to take an 
occasion (which, however, there are a great number of pas- 
sages in the work that would equally, and some of them 
still more pointedly, have afforded), of noticing two things 
in which no poet surpasses Mr. Southey. One is, the intro- 
duction of circumstances which, while slight in themselves, 
are adapted to give the reader a lively impression of reality 
in the situations created by the poet — marking even the 
less obvious of the perceptions by which that reality is 
evinced to the persons represented as in those situations. 
This is happily done, in the present instance, by the sound 
of " the crumbling of the pile," and the " showering round 
of the white ashes." This kind of beauty, recurring fre- 
quently, as it does throughout Mr. Southey's poetry, shows 
an imagination in which all the ideas that are nearly related 
are strongly associated. The other excellence is, that he 
conceives in its most specific form, and perfectly expresses 
in few words, the state of feeling appropriate to any ima- 
gined situation. "We are content to cite as an instance, 
though the poem contains many more perfect ones, the 
passage near the end of the above extract — 

" And feared to move, lest he should prove 
The actual misery." 

Prom this state Ladurlad is roused, by the recommencing 
noise of the funeral orgies. He moves away from the spot, 
unobstructed, for the crowd everywhere shrinks from around 
him with horror ; and as he recovers from his amazement, 
his consciousness the more perfectly verifies the full reality 



POWEEETJL CONCEPTION OE EEELINGS. 459 

and weight of the curse. But it is time to notice, that the 
poet gives us the hint, even by a motto in the title-page, 
that Kehama has rather taken himself in by pronouncing 
this curse ; and in the course of the narrative it is made to 
confer many unthought-of advantages on the victim, amidst 
his misery, and recoils with vindictive operation on its 
author. Its first effect in Ladurlad's favour is, that, water 
being harmless to him, he easily rescues his daughter, whom 
he decries floating down the river, clinging, in a state of 
insensibility, to the wooden idol. The scene that follows, 
displaying the wild exultation that for a few moments be- 
guiles his misery, the appearance of his insensible daughter, 
his efforts to recover her, her gradual restoration to con- 
sciousness, her expressions of surprise and congratulation 
at finding her father alive and free, his hasty movement of 
impatience and anguish at hearing them, and the manner in 
which she is affected by the speedy and unquestionable 
proof of his dreadful calamity — is in all respects eminently 
beautiful. Its exquisite tenderness, and its most accurate 
and lively painting, make the reader almost insensible, for 
the time, to the anti-pathetic influence, if we may so call it, 
of the absurd leading principle of the fable. The same 
powerful conception of an uncommon state of feeling, and 
the same rich delineation of the visible circumstances of the 
scene, prevail through the next portion of the narrative, 
which describes the two sufferers lying on the ground almost 
all the day, absorbed and almost immoveable in misery. As 
a piece of evening devotion, Kailyal erects and worships the 
idol goddess ; and the poet appears to help her in this ser- 
vice with all imaginable cordiality, expatiating for her in 
grateful and pathetic terms on the benignity of this heathen 
deity. Kailyal' s devotion, however, does not amount to a 
persuasion that it will be of any use to remain in the neigh- 
bourhood of her idol ; and, though it is night, she leads her 
father to wander away, at the direction of chance, hopeless 
of all relief, and careless of the danger indicated by well- 
understood signs of the recent ravages of tigers. His torment 
becomes more intense as he recovers the perfect possession 
of his thoughts and consciousness, and as the experimental 
proofs accumulate, which verify, progressively, the reality 
and extent of the curse. At length they recline against the 



460 



sottthey's cttese of eehama. 



root of a tree, Ladurlad shaking a most resolute effort, for 
Lis daughter's sake, to repress the outward signs of his 
misery ; and she fondly but fearfully wishing to attribute 
his stillness to a mitigation of his sufferings, permitting the 
short oblivion of sleep. Through complete exhaustion, she 
sinks into an uneasy slumber, which her father perceives ; 
and, anxious not to oppress her with the sight of his hope- 
less misery, and aggravate it to himself by seeing her made 
a constant sharer, by being a witness of it, gently with- 
draws from her, and, on gaming a little distance, runs impe- 
tuously away. She awakes — vainly calls after him — and 
with the impulse of agony rushes forward in the direction 
in which she believes him gone ; but a temporary cloud of 
extraordinary density, sometimes experienced in the East, 
has made the night so utterly dark that she cannot see the 
ground, and is stopped violently by the bough of a tree : 
she leans on it in a state of overwhelming misery. All this 
is told and described in a manner so exquisitely pathetic, 
with so deep a knowledge of the human passions, and with 
such a striking prominence of all the images, as still com- 
pletely to overpower the effect of the reader's sense of the 
absurdity of a representation of sufferings from an impos- 
sible cause. The scene that immediately follows, in vigour 
of conception, and the power of giving by words such fea- 
tures and aspects to imaginary objects, as almost to make 
us expect we shall immediately have them glaring on our 
eyes, surpasses our previous estimate of the force of even 
Mr. Southey's genius. Kailyal is leaning against the tree 
in anguish, and in perfect darkness. 

" 'Twas like a dream of horror, and she stood 
Half doubting whether all indeed were true. 
A tiger's howl, loud echoing through the wood, 
Boused her ; the dreadful sound she knew, 
And turned instinctively to what she feared. 
Far off the tiger's hungry howl was heard ; 

A nearer horror met the maiden's view, 
For right before her a dim form appeared, 

A human form in that black night, 
Distinctly shaped by its own lurid light, 
Such light as the sickly moon is seen to shed , 
Through spell-rais'd fogs, a bloody baleful red. 



ITS BOLDNESS OP IMAGERY. 461 

u That Spectre fixed his eyes upon her full, 
The light which shone in their accursed orbs 
Was like a light from hell, 
And it grew deeper, kindling with the view, 

She could not turn her sight 
From that infernal gaze, which like a spell 
Bound her, and held her rooted to the ground. 
It palsied every power ! 
Her limbs availed her not in that dread hour. 
There was no moving thence ; 
Thought, memory, sense, were gone ; 
She heard not now the tiger's nearer cry, 
She thought not on her father now, 
Her cold heart's blood ran back, 
Her hand lay senseless on the bough it clasped, 
Her feet were motionless ; 
Her fascinated eyes 
Like the stone eyeballs of a statue fixed, 
Yet conscious of the sight that blasted them. 

" The wind is abroad, 
It opens the clouds ; 
Scattered before the gale, 
They skurry through the sky, 
And the darkness retiring rolls over the vale. 
The stars in their beauty come forth on high, 
And through the dark-blue night 
The moon rides on triumphant, broad and bright. 
Distinct and darkening in her light 
Appears that spectre foul. 
The moonbeam gives his form and face to sight, 

The shape of man, 
The living form and face of Arvalan ! 
His hands are spread to clasp her. 

" But at that sight of dread the maid awoke ; 
As if a lightning-stroke 
Had burst the spell of fear, 
Away she broke all frantically and fled." 

There is no pretending to assign a ne plus ultra to the 
powers of poetry, that is, of human genius, with respect 
to greatness and originality of conception, nor to say that 
even Milton can absolutely never be exceeded ; nor is it as 
an example in this kind that we have transcribed this 
passage j but we are confident that in the power of aggra- 



462 sotjthet's ctjese of kehama. 

vating a bold conception, by concentrating in it all the ideas, 
and none but the ideas, that can give it an intenser 
force, each of these ideas at once being perfect in itself, and 
perfectly combining to give augmented vigour to the prin- 
cipal one, and also in the felicity of expression, poetry has 
no possibility beyond it. A reader who has any power of 
imagination, returning, after a quick glance over the whole 
scene, to a more pointed attention to each of the lines by 
which it is presented, or rather created, will be struck and 
arrested by several of them, as by some touch of fascination. 
He will feel that he has never seen more perfect instances 
of images starting alive through the diction, if we might so 
express it, than in the lines : " Distinctly shaped by its own 
lurid light" — "And it grew deeper, kindling with the 
view" — and the two lines suggesting the simile of the 
eyes of a statue. If the poem contains hardly another 
passage of such superlative excellence, there yet. are many 
that are but little inferior ; and the critic cannot well find 
any language that would be extravagant in the expression 
of admiration of the genius displayed in them. 

In this extremity the Pagan providence fails not to 
interpose again for Kailyal ; and this time it is in the form 
of " Pollear, gentle god," into whose fane, fortunately just 
at hand, the maid had run to take sanctuary, close pursued 
by Arvalan, who was in the very act of seizing her, in the 
temple, when "the insulted god," that is, absolutely the 
image, shaped with an elephant's head, — 

" Caught him aloft, and from his sinuous grasp, 
As if from some tort catapult let loose, 
Over the forest hurled him all abroad." 

If it is asked, how the " spectre " of a dead mail could be 
the subject of this mechanical feat, the poet signifies that it 
had, at this time, assumed by some means a substantial 
" fleshly " form. Now as there are in our own and the 
neighbouring countries spirits as vile as Arvalan, also inha- 
biting and actuating bodies, the moral of this part of the 
fiction is, plainly, that the part of the world where there 
are temples to Pollear is, for that reason, a much preferable 
country for unprotected maidens than this where Chris- 
tianity forbids any such sanctuaries. It would have been 



FASCINATION OP ITS POETEY. 463 

in perfect consistency if the poet tad here, as in a former 
instance, called forth his own sensibility to perform, in 
Kailyal's name, an act of adoring gratitude to the heathen 
god: but the maiden's terror is made to overpower her 
piety. " She tarried not to see what heavenly power had 
saved her in that hour." She hastened away, and stumbled 
and fell senseless under the shade of a manchineel. 

Thus far we have witnessed a remarkable triumph of 
powerful genius. The curse of the " Almighty Eajah " is a 
fancy, to which no force of poetry, ever displayed by mortal 
man, could give any, even the faintest shade of semblance 
of serious reality or possibility — or excite for one instant, 
in any cultivated English reader of mature age, any other 
sentiment than what is naturally awakened at a pure, per- 
fect absurdity, especially when fabricated and gravely 
offered to us by a European writer of our own times; 
and yet, in following the effects, consistently imagined, of 
this malediction, we are compelled, by main force of 
admirable poetry, to take, thus far, an odd sort of concern 
in the fate of its supposed victims. This compulsory spell 
falls on us again in its original force, for a while, at several 
stages in the progress of the story. Its power is com- 
pletely broken on our coming up to the manchineel tree 
above-mentioned. For Kailyal, when nearly dead under it 
pernicious shade, is taken away by a benevolent deveta or 
genius, whimsically denominated a Glendoveer, and borne 
up to the abode of Casyapa, the " Sire of G-ods," on Mount 
"Himakoot," which, 

" From mid-earth rising in mid-heaven, 
Shines in its glory like the throne of Even." 

It is a place of semi-celestial beauty and salubrity ; and the 
maiden, laid near a sacred fountain, which testifies more 
than a lover's joy at touching her hand, gradually revives, 
and thinks herself passed by death into heaven, while 
Ereenia, the deveta, holds an explanatory conversation 
about her with his father Casyapa. After much is said on 
both sides, Ereenia resolves, and as soon as he notifies the 
design has the sanction of the " Father of the Immortals," 
to convey her to the Swerga, the heaven of Indra. He 
instantly calls a " ship of heaven," a vessel " instinct with 



474 sotjthet's curse of kehama. 

couple of shafts at Ereenia and Kailyal. The former is 
struck with the arrow, but calmly and sincerely derides the 
archer. At the instant that the other shaft is pointed 
at Kailyal, the string breaks, fortunately for her, it is 
meant to be intimated, but rather unaccountably, as it is 
made of lees linked together by the legs. The pieces of 
thi* broken bow-string dart away instead of the shaft, to 
Kailyal, and delighted play and " buzz about her." 

Mischief is aimed at the inhabitants of this delightful 
abode from another quarter. Arvalan, after being sent off 
hacked and howling by Ereenia, had recourse, not for the 
first time, to Lorrinite, a dreadful enchantress, demanding 
to be informed where he might find his escaped prey, and 
to be furnished with arms and armour of proof against her 
celestial guardian. It may well be believed he can hardly 
make a demand which she cannot satisfy, when it is seen by 
what means she discovers to him Kailyal' s asylum. 

" At this the Witch, through shrivelled lips and thin, 
Sent forth a sound half-whistle and half-hiss. 
Two winged Hands came in, 
Armless and bodyless, 
Bearing a globe of liquid crystal, set 
In frame as diamond bright, yet black as jet. 
A thousand eyes were quenched in endless night, 

To form that magic globe ; for Lorrinite 
Had, from their sockets, drawn the liquid sight, 
And kneaded it, with re-creating skill 
Into this organ of her mighty will. 
Look in yonder orb, she cried, 
Tell me what is there descried." — P. 116. 

What he descries, is, of course, a picture of the top of 
Meru, with its bower, and the happy inhabitants, each of 
whom he instantly recognizes. He takes the arms and 
armour of infernal fabric brought by Lorrinite, and eagerly 
ascends her car of adamant, fixed over the backs of two 
mighty dragons, which, directed by him, dart upward with 
inconceivable force. He is in sight of the palace and bowers 
of Indra, and exulting in demoniac anticipation, when 
coming to a level with the zone of adamantine rocks round 
Mount Meru, the car is seized and drawn by an irresistible 
attraction : the dragons cannot take it upward another inch : 



ITS MONSTEOUS INCIDENTS. 475 

they, and it, and the demoniac, drive, and whirl, and rage 
away, till they dash against the rocks ; and the miscreant 
falls ten thousand thousand fathoms, pitching into " an ice- 
rift, 'mid the eternal snow." "There," as the poet says, 
" let him howl," 

" Groan there, — and there, with -unavailing moan 
For aid on his Almighty Father call." 

"We think this catastrophe is a little emblematical of the 
fate of genius, when exerting its vigour on such subjects as 
this. Can the poet imagine a possibility of pleasing any 
one mortal by all this idle devilment ? He cannot know so 
little of the intellectual taste of the times, as to suppose 
that, because there are some cultivated readers who are dis- 
posed to look into the romance and poetry of the darker 
ages of Europe, and are considerably interested in observing 
what silly monstrosities, in the way of magic, apprenticeship 
of devils to witches, and a hundred various modes of infer- 
nality, were capable of being made popular amidst the 
wretched barbarism and superstition of those times, there- 
fore a new story of the same sort, made up and told, with 
the same earnest gravity, in the year 1810, can excite any 
other sensations than the most intense disgust and contempt. 
It is in a poet's power, as we are certified by the present 
instance, to effect his own transmigration back into a monk 
or minstrel of the rudest age, or even into an ancient 
Brahmin poet-laureate to the thirty-three millions of gods. 
But really in that case he must be contented to sing to his 
adopted contemporaries. He will not be able to take back 
with him his actual contemporaries of the nineteenth cen- 
tury — excepting, perhaps, Messrs. Twining and Scott-War- 
ing. Assuredly, the generality of the people of these times 
will peremptorily decline putting themselves into a condition 
to be delighted with the story of a woman, plainly a real 
human female, who, at the price of delivering herself up to a 
legion of " fiends," was empowered to command their ser- 
vices for all malicious operations ; who, by her connexion 
with them, became a kind of living embodied " hell," shoot- 
ing from her eyes a quintessence of " venomous" spirit 
which blasted all animal and all vegetable life ; whose ap- 
proach made the " dry and mouldering bones in the grave 



476 southet's cukse oe kehama. 

sweat with fear ;" wlio formed, for the purpose of human 
destruction, a league with the Galis, the " Demon Queens," 
presiding over the Hindoo cities, and a partnership with 
" Sani, the dreadful god, who rides abroad upon the king of 
the ravens," to relieve him in the toils of killing; who 
directed with her finger or her word the operation of earth- 
quakes, plagues, locusts, floods, and drought ; who could 
make a magic oracle-glass of the extracted " liquid sight of 
a thousand human eyes ;" whose stable was a den of yoked 
dragons ; and who had and did many other most prodigious 
things, according to the evidence given in this volume. To 
think that amidst the beams of the sun and moon, the light 
of the Christian religion, and the sense and philosophy of 
modern Europe, a genius like Mr. Southey's should be 
solemnly employed in business like this ! 

"We will try to make better haste towards the conclusion 
of our analysis. " Old Casyapa" arrives, in the " Ship of 
Heaven," on Meru, to announce that the day is come for 
completing Kehama's sacrifice, which it is declared that 
nobody in earth or heaven can prevent this time ; that Indra 
and his suite are preparing to quit the Swerga, taking with 
them, as it should appear by what is said afterwards, the 
famous palace itself; that the consummating stroke of the 
sacrifice will presently be felt like an earthquake through 
Mount Meru (between which and the Swerga, the distinction 
is still made out in but a very faint and confused way) ; 
that Casyapa himself is going to be ejected from Himakoot, 
in his lease of which, indeed, we wonder that Kehama 
(whose estate must long have included that district of 
merely terrestrial highland), had not long since taken occa- 
sion to find a flaw; and that Ladurlad and his daughter 
must instantly return to the earth. The heroic victim 
hears this with a simple dignity of manner which the poet is 
always eminently successful in giving him ; places his 
daughter in the " ethereal bark;" and himself beside her, 
feels the sudden return of the curse in his descent, and 
reaches the earth about the moment that Kehama begins 
his triumphant ascent to take possession of the Swerga — an 
event accompanied with the most dreadful commotion 
through heaven and earth, and of which the following lines 
conclude the celebration : — 



APPEOPBIATION OF BIBLICAL IMAGES. 477 

" Up rose the Kajah through the conquered sky, 
To seize the Swerga for his proud abode ; 

Myriads of evil genii round him fly, 
As royally, on wings of winds, he rode, 
And scaled high Heaven, triumphant like a God." — P. 130. 

Here an exceedingly remarkable image, applied in the 
Bible to the agency of the Almighty, and not made common 
by any other application, is transferred to a personage at 
once fictitious, connected with Paganism, and horribly 
wicked. The natural tendency of this is to associate in the 
reader's mind, by a community in so very remarkable, so 
very peculiar a descriptive representation, the idea of that 
Being and of this personage ; and no language of reprobation 
can be too strong for the occasion. 

Kailyal tenderly insinuates to her father, the request that 
he will not again separate from her, and he with equal ten- 
derness promises, that by choice he never will. They are 
placed in a glade amidst a wood ; and on their looking round 
to consider which way they shall wander, she suggests, that 
certain, alike in every situation, to be pursued by their 
destiny, they shall in vain seek any more eligible place than 
the one where they are, which has various recommendations 
— but in making her so directly specify among them 

" A brook that winds through this sequestered glade, 
And yonder woods, to yield us fruit and shade," 

the poet has not duly preserved that perceptive watchful- 
ness of affection, in which she is generally made so perfect ; 
as water, fruit, and shade, would be of no use to her father. 
The features of the scene, the great banyan tree, and the 
small lake, with lotus flowers : the brute inhabitants, the 
leopards, elephants, monkeys, and birds, are presented in a 
picture in which the more steady phenomena of their natural 
history, are combined with many of those fine and variable 
circumstances, which scarcely appear to any but a poet's eye, 
and leave, but on a poet's imagination, no trace that can be 
reduced into language. And, what could not have been 
expected, these sketches do not lose the distinctness of their 
beauty, as true delineations, by being combined with a great 
deal of extra-natural intelligence, obsequiousness, admira- 
tion, and affection, displayed by all sorts of animals towards 



478 sottthey's cubse of kehama. 

Kailyal. The fortitude of the two sufferers becomes more 
and more consolidated ; and is so finely represented, that it 
wo aid have furnished a noble spectacle, if the fable had 
allowed of its being rested on any basis that truth did not 
require the reader to contemn. The reader, however, that 
is aggrieved bv this wretched obligation on the poet, of 
fidelity to his fable, will not obtain much sympathy from 
that poet — if we may judge from the appearance of free and 
complacent effusion of soul in reciting Kailyal's renewed 
emotions to Marriataly, and Ladurlad's to a " higher power," 
as it is here pronounced to be — 

" To her, who on her secret throne reclined, 
Amid the milky sea, by Veeshnoo's side, 
Looks with an eye of mercy on mankind. 
By the Preserver, with his power endued, 
There Yoomdavee beholds this lower clime, 
And marks the silent suffering of the good, 
To recompense them in her own good time." — P. 137, 

— if we may judge by his so formally adopting, as appropriate 
to the case, the peculiar phrases of Christian theology : 

" Such strength the will revealed had given 
This holy pair, such influxes of grace, 
That to their solitary resting-place 

They brought the peace of Heaven." — P. 138. 

Thus a writer who displays, on so many subjects, an exqui- 
sitely refined perception of discriminations and congruities, 
and highly excels in preserving, amidst a diversified multi- 
plicity of things, the purity and integrity of any quality or 
sentiment, which he regards as of sufficient dignity to be 
kept thus inviolate, is willing to confound the true religion 
with a detestable superstition, by very carefully making 
their devotional sentiments identical, and the language 
descriptive of them interchangeable. 

Kailyal's mingled despondency and hope, respecting any 
further care or intervention of Ereenia, are very delicately 
characterized by some of the symptoms of personal ten- 
derness. While pensively afraid that he has withdrawn his 
guardianship, and unaware that she is unceasingly followed 
by the keenest attention of Lorrinite, Arvalan, and Keharaa, 



KAILYAL IN JAGGEKNATJT'S TEMPLE. 479 

which last, it is intimated, perceives her destiny to be 
mysteriously connected with his own, one more preparatory 
portion of that destiny is accomplished, by her being 
suddenly seized and carried off, by a band of Yoguees, as a 
fit bride for Jaggernaut. A thousand frantic pilgrims draw 
forth, in the night, that hideous idol, with Kailyal placed 
beside him, amidst the glare of torches, and a terrible 
hubbub of shouts, gongs, and trumpets, which overpowers 
the groans of the self-devoted wretches perishing under the 
wheels of the enormous carriage that 

" Eolls on, and crushes all. 

Through blood and bones it ploughs its dreadful path. 
Groans rise unheard ; the dying cry, 
And death and agony, 
Are trodden under foot by yon mad throng 
"Who follow close and thrust the deadly wheels along." 

—P. 147. 

Pilled with dread and amazement at this scene, which the 
poet describes with congenial fury of verse, she is yet soon 
to be placed in one of more intense horror. She is conveyed 
back to the temple ; hailed with soft music by a band of 
female ministers to its abomination, as the happy bride of 
the god ; conducted into a retired apartment ; and there left 
alone : but not long. The chief priest of this infernal fane 
makes his appearance in the apartment, and approaches her, 
as the god. Suddenly he is obstructed by some unseen 
power, and with a horrid cry falls dead on the floor. But 
just as Kailyal looks up, expecting to see Ereenia as the 
inflictor of this just vengeance, the body becomes re-animated 
with another soul, 

u And in the fiendish joy within his eyes, 
She knew the hateful spirit who looked through 
Their specular orbs, clothed in the flesh of man, 

She knew the acursed soul of Arvalan." 

She calls on Ereenia, who instantly appears, catches Arvalan 
up to the roof of the temple, and dashes him in pieces on 
the floor. At this instant appears Lorrinite with her " host 
of demons," whom she commands to seize Ereenia, carry 
him off, and confine him in the ancient submarine, " sepul- 
chres of Baly;" which is all done in a minute, while she 



480 sottthey's curse op kehama. 

makes up the smashed corpse again for the use of Arvalan, 
whom she incites and leaves to seize the prey, thrown at 
last so completely into his power. But Kailyal, in cool 
and desperate self-possession, snatches a torch, (it is not 
explained how such a thing could be within her reach,) and 
sets the furniture of the bed in a blaze, which catches, in a 
moment, all that is combustible in the temple, except in the 
precise spot where she is placed, and drives away the 
scorched and bellowing miscreant. She is resigning herself 
to perish by this infinitely preferable mode of sacrifice, when, 
as another felicitous consequence of the curse, Ladurlad 
rushes in and bears away his daughter through the flames, — 
which Kehama had made harmless to him, but which the 
poet alone could make harmless to her. 

They then make a long journey to the ruins of the city of 
Baly, to rescue Ereenia ; the maiden, for her now almost 
adored Grlendoveer's sake, exulting, and even Ladurlad at 
intervals heroically exulting in the power, conferred by the 
dreadful charm, of entering the vaults under the ocean. 
During their journey, he gives her the history of Baly, 
whose ambition, in making a similar attempt to that in 
which Kehama had recently succeeded, had consigned him 
to Padalon, or Hell, but whose many eminent virtues had 
obtained him there the high situation of judge of the dead. 
They reach at length the shore, where they see the pinnacles 
of the ancient structures, extending to a distance in the sea, 
Ladurlad commences the enterprise with great alacrity and 
elation : advancing into the sea, which starts and separates 
before him, rises above him, as his way descends, and soon 
closes in an arch over him, preserving, wherever he ad- 
vances or turns, a vacancy of little greater extent than the 
dimensions of his person. This adventure furnishes, by what 
he sees, and the spirit in which he sees and acts, some of the 
finest poetry in the work. Nothing, for example, can be 
more exquisitely described, than the varying lights and shades 
on the sand. 

" With steady tread he held his way 
Adown the sloping shore. 
The dark green waves, with emerald hue, 
Imbue the beams of day, 
And on the wrinkled sand below, 



AN ADMIRABLE DESCRIPTION. 481 

Boiling their mazy network to and fro, 
Light shadows shift and play." — P. 168. 

Sea monsters impetuously dart towards him, but as hastily 
dart away. He reaches the gate of the ancient city, but 
pauses awhile in admiration before he enters it. It is 
open, just as it had been left by the multitude rushing out 
to escape, when the sea was rising to overwhelm the city. 
All the structures are represented as remaining unimpaired, 
after an unknown series of ages, which have only given, 
through the medium of an affection of the spectator's mind, 
a more awful aspect to the temples and palaces, a more 
mysterious and yet impressive significance to the statues, 
emblems, and inscriptions. And the effect is prodigiously 
heightened by the profound solitude, " the everlasting still- 
ness of the deep." The whole most admirable description 
has a tone of solemnity perfectly harmonious with the mag- 
nificence, the antiquity, the submarine retirement and 
obscurity, and the total and endless solitude of the scene. 
And it greatly heightens our interest in Ladurlad's cha- 
racter that the manner in which he contemplates and 
explores these wonders, withdrawn for ever from all other 
human sight, shows him worthy to tread 

" Those streets which never, since the days of yore, 
By human footstep had been visited ; 
Those streets which never more 
A human foot shall tread." 

He takes the broad mighty impression of so strange a 
scene ; gazing with such an absorption of solemn delight 
that he forgets, for a little while, the curse, the immediate 
object of his adventure, and even his daughter. He ac- 
quires dignity by being thus made to possess so much 
mental faculty as to be, in defiance of all circumstances and 
distractions, powerfully arrested, by what is grand, awful, 
and beautiful. It might be doubted, perhaps, whether an 
Indian "peasant " would be likely to have had his imagina- 
tion and taste sufficiently cultivated to be susceptible of so 
strong a captivation ; but there is no saying how much he 
may have profited in the studies conducive to fine taste, 
during his residence on Mount Meru, in the society of 
Ereenia, and in reach of Indra's fine library. 

I l 



482 sotjthey's curse of keeiama. 

Becollecting, after this short and happy entrancemeut 
the purpose he came upon, he finds and enters the way to 
the sepulchral chambers of the kings ; losing, as he goes 
down, "the sea-green light of day," which is supposed to 
have been thus far transmitted to him, and meeting in the 
passage another light, " of red and fiery hue." This proves 
to proceed from carbuncles set in the sceptres held in the 
hands of the dead kings, sitting in this great vault each on 
a throne, in a separate " alcove," and all in the condition of 
perfect, fresh-looking, and supple flesh and limb, with eyes 
open, "large, glazed, fixed, and meaningless," and "ray- 
less," except that they " dimly reflected to that gem-born 
light." There was another alcove, which had been intended 
for the sepulchral residence of Baly, if he had not given 
himself a different destiny; and there Ladurlad descries 
Ereenia, bound to the rock with a pondrous chain of ada- 
mant, and guarded by a most hideous sea monster, fixed to 
that station by Lorrinite. There ensues a furious uninter- 
mitted combat of six days and nights between this monster 
and our hero, who, being charmed against both fatigue and 
wounds, literally tires to death his strong and fell antago- 
nist, by the evening of the seventh day. He then cuts 
with a scimitar the fetters of the Grlendoveer, and they 
most joyfully ascend in quest of Kailyal, who has been 
waiting so many days with a fearful impatience, that had 
grown at last almost to anguish, but has become the impa- 
tience of confident hope, from the sight of the dead 
monster, which has previously risen and drifted to the 
shore. They meet; when, in the very moment of their 
rapture, who should appear but Arvalan again, and Lorri- 
nite with her demons, ready to make once more their 
respective captions. 

But it so happens that, unseen, Baly also was come to 
the identical spot. He suddenly shines out " among them 
in the midnight air," seizes with a hundred hands the whole 
crew ; stamps and splits the earth ; and in an instant 
plunges down with them into Padalon — where the reader 
is for their sakes heartily content there should be a per- 
manent suspension of the Habeas Corpus. A violent shriek 
of invocation to Kehama brings him from the Swerga, with 
the velocity and fury of a thunderbolt, but too late to 



ereeitia's appeal to seeya. 483 

rescue his son. But he also can stamp, make the earth 
cleave again, and hurl down a challenge to Ealy and Yamen, 
assuring them it shall not be long before he makes ingress 
on their territory, and gives them some warm employment. 
The earth has his permission to close up the rent ; and he 
then fixes his eyes on Kailyal, with a somewhat less than 
usual severity of aspect, and signifies to her, that as she 
now perceives it to be among the appointments of fate that 
he and she alone, of all mortals, are to drink the Amreeta, 
or drink of immortality, it necessarily follows that she is his 
destined bride. He invites her to the accomplishment of 
that glorious destiny ; and to prove himself quite serious in 
the affair, he at a word neutralizes the deadly eurse, and 
observes to Ladurlad, in a condescending and almost pen- 
sive tone, that they both have been, thus far, but fulfilling, 
unconsciously, the decrees of fate. The lady declines, in 
terms of, perhaps, deficient politeness,, to become queen of 
the Swerga, " and of whatever worlds beside infinity may 
hide." His brow darkens, and the sentence that begins 
with a kind of plea that she ought to be gratefully proud to 
comply, ends in a threatening that she shall be compelled. 
A violent fulmination of his anger explodes him back into 
the sky. Ladurlad has the curse again, and his daughter a 
leprosy. She is magnanimous enough to rejoice in the pro- 
tection which this will afford her, against the dangers to 
which her beauty would have exposed her. The only dis- 
tress is, to think what its effect may be on the complacency 
of Ereenia. 

That Glendoveer, the while, is gone on an " emprize " 
which the whole magazine of pompous epithets is emptied 
to blazon out as most daring and awful. It is to represent 
his wrongs to Seeva himself, the uppermost of all the gods. 
Though the said Seeva is declared omnipresent, yet the 
appellant must make his petition on a certain silver Mount 
Calasay, the outermost point, or somewhere beyond the 
outermost point, of all worlds. The difficulty of the 
achievement, in point of time and flying merely, is formid- 
ably intimated by a serious and authentic relation — how 
that once on a time, when Brahma and Veeshnoo were 
quarrelling most furiously for the pre-eminence, Seeva (there 
being most likely no officer of police at hand) determined 

i i 2 



484 sotjthet's cubse of kehama. 

to put an end to the rivalry, by showing them who was the 
master of them both. Eor this purpose he presented him- 
self to them in the form of a fiery column, the longitude of 
which they were to explore ; but a thousand years of ascent, 
and " ten myriads years " of descent, did not bring Brahma 
to the upper end, nor Veeshnoo to the lower. A consider- 
able number of pages, in this part, exhibit another most 
earnest, though unavailing effort to give a power of grand 
and religious impression to some of the silliest phantasms 
of mythology. The sanctities of the true temple are rifled 
for the profane service ; the attributes of the Deity are with 
most religious formality given to Seeva ; and the poet is 
pertinaciously resolute that " intensity of faith and holiest 
love " shall be no distinctive qualities of Christian devotion. 
As an auspicious termination of the adventure, it is signified 
from Seeva to Ereenia, that he and his complainant friends 
must carry their suit to the throne of Yamen, where " all 
odds will be made even." 

The sections ensuing, therefore, are intitled "The 
Embarkation" and "The World's End;" and relate, with 
extraordinary force of imagination, a voyage of the three 
friends across a dark stormy sea, which separates this world 
from the next — the emotions of the two human adventurers 
—the landing on an " icy belt " — and the appearances of the 
various classes of ghosts, there waiting to be carried 
down by demons, through a dark lake to the place of 
judgment. Much of this gloomy vision is presented with 
little less pointed specifically, if we may so express it, 
of circumstance, and little les3 intensity of colouring, than 
the following description: — 

" Then might be seen who went in hope, and who 
Trembled to meet the meed 
Of many a foul misdeed, as wild they threw 
Their arms retorted from the demon's grasp, 

And looked around, all eagerly, to seek 
For help, where help was none ; and strove for aid 
To clasp the nearest shade ; 
Yea, with imploring looks and horrent shriek. 
Even from one demon to another bending, 
With hands extending, 
Their mercy they essayed. 
Still from the verge they strain, 






PADALON. 485 

And from the dreadful gulph avert their eyes, 
In vain ; down plunge the demons, and their cries 
Feebly, as down they sink, from that profound arise." 

—P. 125. 

Ereenia takes Kailyal first, and afterwards her father, down 
through the lake to the southern gate of Padalon. In the 
moment of preparing for this formidable plunge with the first, 
he addresses her in language containing a parody which 
cannot be lost on the readers of the gospels : — 

" Be of good heart, beloved ! it is I 
Who bear thee." 

Arrived at the gate, they are assailed by terrific sounds, 
and receive, from the giant god that guards it, a most appal- 
ling description of the essential, and of the present occasional 
state of Padalon ; for, it seems, the confidant expectation of 
Kehama's acquiring the dominion of hell as well as heaven, 
has excited among the wicked spirits, throughout the whole 
infernal dominion, such a dreadful insurrectional fury, that 
even Tamen trembles on his throne ; while they are invoking, 
with thundering clamours, the Rajah to set them free with 
his "irresistible right hand," — a hand, be it remembered, 
constructed of a few ounces of bone and flesh. The warden " 
god furnishes the two mortals with incombustible robes, as a 
protection in passing through the region of fire, and a one- 
wheeled chariot, which, self-directed, carries the adventurers 
over a vast bridge, as sharp as the edge of a scimitar, which 
spans the sea of fire that encircles Padalon. 

They pass through a horrible scene of torment, and rage, 
and tumult, till they come to the metropolis of Tamen, who 
is found seated on a marble sepulchre, with Baly on a judg- 
ment-seat, at his feet: and 

tt A golden throne before them vacant stood ; 

Three human forms sustained its ponderous weight, 
With lifted hands outspread, and shoulders bowed, 
Bending beneath their load : 
A fourth was wanting. They were of the hue 

Of walls of fire ; yet were were they flesh and blood, 
And living breath they drew : 
And their red eye-balls rolled with ghastly stare, 
As thus, for their misdeeds they stood tormented there." — 

P. 251. 



486 sotjthey's cuese of kehama. 

Tamen bids them wait with patience the awful hour 
appointed to decide the fate of Padalon and the universe, 
which hour, he says, is fast approaching. And so it proves; 
for even while he is speaking, the hideous uproar sinks in a 
silence much more portentous and terrible. Shortly this 
silence gives place to a distant sound, which is soon 
perceived to be advancing and deepening. It is nothing less 
than the approach of Kehama ; who, multiplying or dividing 
himself into eight distinct persons, has invaded Padalon by 
its eight different gates, all at one moment ; comes driving, 
on furiously in eight chariots ; invests the infernal god ; and, 
after a dreadful but short conflict, places his foot trium- 
phantly on his neck. He dallies awhile with his new power, 
to feel the triumph more exquisitely ; but soon imperiously 
demands the Amreeta, for himself and Kailyal. A " huge 
Anatomy " rises from the marble tomb, and presents the cup. 
He drinks, and becomes the fourth tormented and immortal 
statue, under the "golden throne." Then Kailyal drinks, 
is transformed into a perfectly ethereal being, and is raptur- 
ously welcomed by Ereenia as now his equal and immortal 
companion. Ladurlad is dismissed by a gentle death to 
meet them, and the happy spirit of his wife, in the Swerga. 

The preceding abstract has so far exceeded all reasonable 
bounds, and has so often digressed into comments, that the 
observations we may wish to add must be allowed to occupy 
but a very small space. They can indeed do little else than 
assert, in a somewhat more general form, several of the 
principles which we have ventured to 'apply here and there 
to the work, in passing along. 

We must repeat then, in the first place, our censure of 
the adoption or creation of so absurd a fable. It is little 
enough, to be sure, that we know of the order of the uni- 
verse. But yet human reason, after earnest and inde- 
fatigable efforts of inquiry, through several thousands of 
years (during a great part of which period the inquiry has 
been prosecuted under the advantage of a revelation), finds 
itself in possession of a few general principles which may, 
without presumption, be deemed to inhere in, and regulate 
the universal system : — insomuch that these principles would 
be very confidently assigned, by thinking men, as reasons 
for disbelieving a great many propositions that might be 



ABSTJEDITY OF THE FICTION. 487 

advanced, relative to the moral or the physical order of the 
creation, or any of its parts, — relative to the economy of 
any supposed class of intelligent beings. And in proportion 
as we withdraw from the immensity of this subject, and 
bring our thoughts near this world of our own, we find our- 
selves authorized to apply still more principles, and to reject 
or to affirm still more propositions relative to beings that, 
if they exist at all, must exist according to an order in 
many points analogous to our own economy. Let it be 
assumed, for instance, that there are inhabitants in the 
moon, and we shall be warranted on the ground of the 
various circumstances of the analogy between their place of 
abode and ours, to advance a great deal more in the way of 
probable conjecture respecting their economy, than we could 
respecting an order of beings, our only datum concerning 
which should be, that whatever and wherever it is, its 
condition has less resemblance to our own than that of any 
other race of intelligent creatures. But when we come 
actually to this world, and men are the subjects of our 
thoughts, we know our ground completely ; and can compare 
the descriptions and fictitious representations of the nature 
and condition of man, with the plain standard fact. It 
should be added, that our knowledge of what are called the 
laws of matter, reaches far further into the universe than our 
knowledge of the economy of intelligent existences : and 
therefore we may be allowed to make very confident asser- 
tions respecting, for instance, the qualities and powers of 
fire and water, in the remotest and most singular world in 
which those elements exist, while we might be exceedingly 
diffident and limited in our guesses concerning the sup- 
posed intelligent inhabitants of that world. 

Now this degree of knowledge which we have acquired of 
the physical and moral order of the creation, has become a 
standard of probability for the works of imagination. If 
those fictions conform to the arrangements of this order, as 
far as they are ascertained, or reasonably inferred from 
general principles, they are pronounced probable ; but if in 
contrariety to these arrangements, they must be pronounced 
— not improbable merely, but absurd : — except, indeed, when 
they are legitimately representing what we call miracles ; and 



488 sottthet's curse or kehama. 

as miracles are the works of God only — the true God — they 
can never be legitimately represented as operations of 
fictitious and Pagan divine powers. Improbable fictions, 
we repeat, should be held absurd : for, surely, the actual 
economy of the creation, as arranged by its Author, must be 
the grand prototype of wise and beautiful design — of all the 
adaptation, proportions, and congruities constituting or 
conducing to the perfection of the whole system of existence. 
Indeed there could be no other model from which to draw 
our ideas of proportion, adaptation, harmony, and whatever 
else is meant by the term order, than this created system, 
unless the Creator had revealed another model, an ideal 
model, existing in his infinite mind, widely different from the 
actual creation. AVe, therefore, cannot represent material 
and intellectual existences of a nature, or in relations and 
combinations, inconsistent with the known laws of the 
creation, without violating the only true principles of order 
which it is possible for us to conceive. This we are forced 
practically to acknowledge in all our judgments on the pro- 
priety or absurdity of the creations of fancy ; for it is to 
these laws that we necessarily advert in pronouncing the 
representations made by the imagination in dreaming, deli- 
rium, and insanity, to be absurd ; and it is only on their 
authority that we can pronounce anything absurd, except 
what involves a metaphysical contradiction. Unless the 
absolute authority of these laws are acknowledged, it shall 
be perfectly reasonable for a poet to represent a race of 
people made of steel, or half steel half flesh — or human 
heads, as in the illuminations of old manuscripts, growing 
on twigs of trees — or one man making himself into eight, 
like Kehama, and then returning into one again — or fire 
and water in perfect amity. It is, in short, only in deference 
to these laws of the creation, that we can be excused for 
refusing our respect and admiration to the infinite puerility 
and monstrosity of the Hindoo poets as they are called. Now 
a very considerable portion of the fictions, constituting the 
present poem, is constructed in utter defiance of this 
standard. The whole affair of the operation of the curse, 
the story of Lorrinite, the origination of the Ganges, the 
fire and water palace of Indra, the adventures of Mount 



ABSURDITY OP THE FICTION. 489 

Calasay, the transactions and creatures of Padalon, with 
much more that has been noticed in the analysis, are things 
of a nature not only in perfect contrariety to the state and 
laws of the actual creation, but incompatible with any 
economy of which we can conceive the possible existence. A 
strong, an irresistible impression of flagrant absurdity will, 
therefore, be the predominant perception of every reader 
incapable of a temporary abolition of his reason. The dis- 
gust at this absurdity will be so very active a feeling, and 
will be so seldom suffered by the poet to subside, that it 
will, at many parts of the work, almost wholly preclude the 
pleasure that would else be imparted by the splendid 
scenery and eloquent diction by which even the grossest 
of the absurdities are attempted to be made imposing. 
"We may wonder, in very simplicity, why the poet should 
choose deliberately to labour to excite at once the two oppo- 
site sentiments of pleasure and disgust, with the knowledge, 
too, that any attempt to prolong them both is infallibly 
certain to end in the ascendancy of the latter. Or does he 
really think the beauties of his composition are so tran- 
scendent, that they will banish all recollection about proba- 
bility and improbability, or fairly vanquish the repugnance of 
cultivated minds to gross absurdity ? And if he could do this, 
what would be the value of the achievement ? "What has 
been the grand object and utility of observing, of investi- 
gating, of philosophizing through all ages, but to put 
mankind in possession of truth, and to discipline their 
minds to love truth, to think according to the just laws of 
thinking, and to hate all fallacy and absurdity ; in short, to 
advance the human race at last, if it be possible, to something 
like the manhood of reason ? And would it, then, be a meri- 
torious employment of a genius that really should be powerful 
enough to counteract these exertions, and retard this progress 
to reduce the human mind, or any one mind, back to a state in 
which it could love or tolerate puerile or raving absurdity — to 
that very state which the generality of the orientals are in at 
this day, and for being in which they have (till lately their 
Paganism has recommended them to our favour) been the 
objects of our sovereign contempt ? But if all our influ- 
ential poetry were to be of the same character as that of 



490 sotjthey's cukse of kehama. 

a large portion of the present work, we might justly regard 
the poetic tribe as a conspiracy to seduce men into a com- 
placency with what involves a total abjuration of sense, and 
so to defeat the labours for maturing the human under- 
standing, — labours, verily, of which the toil is great enough, 
and the success little enough, even unobstructed by such 
intervention. 

There can be no danger, we suppose, of hearing pleaded 
in maintenance of the privilege of poetry to be absurd, that 
the scope of probability is too confined to afford sufficient 
variety of materials. That scope includes nothing less than 
all that is known of this whole world, — all that may, in 
strict analogy with what is known, be conjectured or fancied 
of it, in times past, present, and to come, — and all that can 
be imagined of all other worlds, without violating what we 
have reason to believe the principles of the order of the 
creation, and without contradicting any doctrine of revela- 
tion. This scope is, therefore, in the popular sense of the 
word, infinite ; and to seek for materials which it does not 
include, will generally be found an indication of a feeble 
mind. It is quite needless to say, this remark can have no 
application to Mr. Southey : but it is a remark applicable 
to him, that such feeble minds will be glad to find and plead 
a warrant for their folly in the example of a strong one. 

After all, it would be foolish to affect any great degree of 
apprehension for the public taste, from the perverting ope- 
ration of one, or any number of works, attempting to recon- 
cile it to the kind and excess of absurdity exhibited in this 
poem, even if all such works had all the poetical excellence 
so conspicuous in this. There is a point in the improve- 
ment both of individuals and communities, after which they 
cannot be even amused to more than a certain latitude, if 
we may so express it, from the line of their reason. 

The next chief point of censure would be, that this 
absurdity is also Paganism ; but this has been noticed so 
pointedly and repeatedly in our analysis, that a very few 
words here will suffice. There are Marriataly, Pollear, 
Yama, Indra, Yeeshnoo, Seeva, Padalon, the Swerga, &c, 
celebrated in the most Christianized country of Europe, 
by a native poet. Now if these had been merely the fictions 



PAGANISM OP THE POEM. 491 

of his own mind, and not parts of a heathen mythology, 
even then they would have been, as they are here managed, 
an unpardonable violation of religious rectitude. For (the 
truth of the religion of the Bible being assumed) the poet 
has no right to frame, with a view to engage our compla- 
cency in, such a fictitious economy of divine and human 
beings as, if it could be real, would constitute the negation 
or extinction of that religion. But the present fiction, so 
far and so long as the force of poetry (which the poet would 
have augmented indefinitely if he could) can render the 
illusion prevalent on the mind, is not only the making void 
of the true religion, and the substitution of another and a 
vile theology in its place : it is no less than the substitution 
of a positive and notorious system of Paganism. It vacates 
the eternal throne, not only in order to raise thither an 
imaginary divinity, but absolutely to elevate Seeva, the 
adored abomination of the Hindoos. He is as much and 
as gravely attempted to be represented as a reality, as he 
could be by the poets of those heathens themselves. And, 
as if on purpose to preclude the officiousness of any friend 
that might wish to palliate or justify this proceeding, by 
the old pretendedly philosophical allegation, that this is 
only accommodating so far to another division of the human 
race, as to apply the name under which they worship a 
supreme being, to the Supreme Being that we somewhat 
more intelligently worship, — as if expressly to forbid any 
such apology, and to give proof that what he is endeavour- 
ing to gain a place for in our minds is genuine and formal 
heathenism, he has given an equally grave semblance of 
reality to a variety of other gods as well as Seeva, and to 
the Pagan heaven and hell. These, at any rate, are dis- 
claimed even by that irreligious philosophy that insults 
revelation with the pretence that it may be, in truth, the 
same divine Essence that is worshipped " by saint, by 
savage, or by sage" under the varied denominations of 
" Jehovah, Jove, Lord," or Seeva. These systematic ap- 
pendages and connexions, therefore, verify the Paganism of 
the whole theology of this poem. And to this paganism, 
the poet has most earnestly laboured, as we have before 
observed and shown, to transfer what is peculiar to the true 
theology. Expressions of awful reverence, and ascriptions 



492 sotjthet's cttkse oe kehama. 

of divine attributes to Seeva, are uttered by the poet in bis 
own person ; be studies most solicitously to give every 
appearance and every epitbet of dignity to the worship 
represented as rendered to the gods by Ladurlad, Kailyal, 
and Ereenia ; and the fidelity to this devotion at length 
attains an eternal reward. Now we have only to ask, 
"What was the impression which the poet wished all these 
combined and co-operating representations to make on the 
reader's mind ? He will not say, nor any one for him, that 
he was unaware that a certain moral effect necessarily 
accompanies all striking representations of moral agents, 
and that all he reckoned on, in a work of great and pro- 
tracted effort, was to present simply a series of images, 
chasing one another away, like those in a magic lanthorn, 
or like the succession of clouds in the sky, making no 
impression on the mind but merely that of their splendour, 
beauty, or monstrousness. Aware then of a moral effect, 
and intending it, did he design that effect should be hostile 
in the severest manner to heathenism ? Throughout this 
exhibition of gods, providences, devotions, heavens, and 
hells, was it a leading purpose to make the reader detest 
the fancies about Indra and Seeva, and the Swerga and 
Padalon, and pray that such execrable delusions might be 
banished from those millions of minds in which they are 
entertained as something more than poetry ? For any pur- 
pose of this kind, the means, evidently, would not be at all 
of the nature of those he has employed. He most clearly 
had no intention that his Seeva, his Indra, his Yama, his 
Baly, and so forth, should appear to the reader in the full 
odiousness, or any degree of the odiousness, of the character 
of false gods ; and that the reader should recoil with abhor- 
rence at all his devotional sentiments towards these divi- 
nities. But it is then to be believed, that he was content 
or desirous that his bold conceptions, his fine painting, his 
rich language, should lend the whole of that powerful assist- 
ance which he knows such things contribute, by necessary 
association, in behalf of whatever they are employed to 
exhibit and embellish — to render false gods and their 
worship, and so much more of a most execrable system of 
Paganism as the poem allowed room for admitting, agreeable 
objects to the reader's imagination, and as far as possible 



WANT OF EEVEEENCE FOE ClIEISTIANITY. 493 

interesting to his affections ? "We do not see how the poet 
is to be acquitted of this, unless, as we observed before, we 
could suppose so absurd a thing, as that he should regard 
his work as a mere piece of scenery, displaying fine colours 
and strange shapes, without any moral tendency at all. It 
is possible our author may have in his own mind some mode 
of explaining and justifying such a conduct, and that with- 
out a rejection of rational theism or revealed religion ; with 
either of which degrees of disbelief we are very far from 
thinking he is chargeable. But the very least that a Christian 
critic can say in such a case is, that no man, rightly impress-ed 
with the transcendent idea of a Supreme Being, and with 
the unspeakable folly and danger of trifling with the purity 
and integrity, and sporting away, in any the smallest degree, 
the awfulness of that idea, could have written this work, or 
can read it without displeasure and regret. 

It was to be foreseen that sooner or later, one of the many 
enterprises of genius would be a very formal and strenuous 
attempt to confer English popularity on the Hindoo gods. 
It was a thing not to be endured, that, while we are as proud 
as Kehama of possessing India, we should not be able to 
bring to the augmentation of our national splendour that 
which India itself deems its highest glory, its mythology. 
And since the attempt was to be made, we should be very 
glad it has been made by a poet, whose failure will be a per- 
manent proof and monument of the utter desperateness of 
the undertaking — if we did not regret that so much genius 
should have been sacrificed to such a contemptible purpose. 
The grave part of the regret is of the same kind with that 
which affects us at seeing Sir Thomas More surrender his 
life in devout assertion of the infallibility and universal 
spiritual dominion of an impious impostor, called the Pope. 
But there mingles with this regret the same strong percep- 
tion of the ludicrous, as we should feel in seeing a fine 
British fleet, in full equipment and appointment, sent out to 
India just for the purpose of bringing back, each ship, a 
basket of the gods of crockery, or some portions of that 
material with which the Lama of Thibet is reported to enrich 
the craving hands of his devotees, and at length coming into 
the Channel with flags flying, and their cannon thundering, 
in celebration of the cargo. Or if the reader has not enough 



494 sotjthet's cuese of kehama. 

of similes, we would compare the poet to an artist who, if 
such a thing were possible in any other art than poetry, 
should make choice of the most offensive substances, to be 
moulded with the utmost delicacy and beauty of workman- 
ship, into forms which should excite a violent contest between 
the visual and olfactory senses, in which, however, the latter 
would be sure to be victorious. 

After these observations on what we think the two mortal 
sins of this performance, absurdity and irreverence, sub- 
ordinate remarks cannot claim room for an extension of this 
overgrown article. There is not anything that can properly 
be called character in the work. Kehama is a personage so 
monstrous that nothing extravagant could be said to be out 
of character in him. There is much ability evinced in 
giving Ladurlad more of what we can sympathize with, 
more of purely human dignity, amiableness, and distress 
than would have been supposed practicable in a representa- 
tion of human beings under such strange and impossible 
circumstances. We need not say one word more of the 
wonderful power of description displayed in every part of 
the poem. It appears with unabated vigour in the concluding 
canto or section, which exhibits Padalon, the Hindoo hell. 
This exhibition, however, has a kind of coarse hideousness, 
which would be very remote from anything awful or sublime, 
even if it included much less of the clumsy, uncouth mon- 
strosity of the Hindoo fables ; and if the measureless power 
and terrors of Kehama, and his making himself into eight 
terrible gods, did not appear so insipidly and irksomely 
foolish. There is too much sameness of fire, steel, and 
adamant ; and there is in the whole scene a certain flaring 
nearness, which allows no retirement of the imagination 
into wide, and dubious, and mysterious terrors. This puts 
it in unfortunate contrast with the infernal world of 
Milton, and the difference is somewhat like that between 
walking amidst a burning town, and in a region of volcanoes. 
We must not bring, even into thought, any sort of com- 
parison between the display of mind in Milton's infernal 
personages and those of Padalon. 

The general diction of the work is admirably strong, and 
various, and free ; and, in going through it, we have 
repeatedly exulted in the capabilities of the English Ian- 



ITS VERSIFICATION. 495 

guage. Tlie author seems to have in a great measure 
grown out of that affected simplicity of expression, of which 
he has generally been accused. The versification, as to 
measure and rhyme, is a complete defiance of all rule and 
all example ; the lines are of any length, from four syllables 
to fourteen; there are sometimes rhymes and sometimes 
none ; and they have no settled order of recurrence. This 
is objectionable, chiefly, as it allows the poet to riot away in 
a wild wantonness of amplification, and at the very same 
time imposes on him the petty care of having the lines so 
printed as to put the letter-press in the form of a well- 
adjusted picture. 

The notes comprise a large assortment of curious par- 
ticulars, relating to the Eastern mythology and manners, 
and to natural history. 



VINDICATION OF FOX'S HISTORY. 

A Vindication of Mr. Fox's History of the Early Part of the 
Reign of James II. By Samuel Heywood, Sergeant-at-Law. 
4to. 1811. 

Supposing this work to be effectually what the title 
professes, there are several good reasons why it should be 
published. In the first place, it is necessary to the intel- 
lectual good order of the community that minds of pre- 
eminent superiority should be, by a general and established 
law, the objects of a respect, partaking in a certain degree 
of homage, and shown in a somewhat ceremonious deference. 
They are the natural nobility and magistracy in what may 
be called the economy of sense ; and it is easy to foresee 
what will be the consequence, if they are to be subjected to 
such a levelling system, as that all sorts of people may 
venture on whatever impertinent freedoms they please, — as 
that every smatterer in knowledge and pretender to ability 
may beard them, rudely question them, contradict them, and 
proclaim them as ignorant or incapable. Mind itself, the 
noblest thing we have among us, would be insulted, and be 



496 VINDICATION OF FOX'S HISTOET. 

liable to become degraded, by this indecorons treatment of 
its higher specimens and exhibitions : the just rules of 
thinking, which can be kept in- force only by a deference for 
the dictates and exemplifications of these superior minds, 
would be swept aside, the self-importance of little spirits 
would grow arrogant, and a general anarchy of intellect 
would lead to its general prostration. The prescriptive 
rights, therefore, of this privileged order, ought to be care- 
fully maintained. 

Doubtless this reverence for superior minds may, in some 
circumstances, degenerate into servility and superstition. 
It will be recollected, what a despotic empire over the 
thinking world was acquired by Aristotle. Other powerful 
spirits have, in different ages, established upon this venera- 
tion tyrannies, less extended and durable indeed than his, 
yet greatly obstructive of the free exercise and the progress 
of the human understanding ; though it may, at the same 
time, be doubted whether it was not, in many instances, 
better to entertain those systems of notions, admitted 
through submission to these ascendant minds, than to be in 
that state of utter mental stagnation which, but for their 
ascendancy, would have been the condition of many of their 
believing devotees. But this superstitious deference to high 
mental powers has so far declined, from whatever causes, 
that nothing is now more common than to see persons of very 
ordinary endowments assuming with all possible assurance 
and self-complacency, to put themselves forward in even a 
contemptuous hostility to the strongest minds of the present 
or past times. It will be salutary, therefore, as tending to 
repress this arrogance, and enforce due subordination, to 
have now and then a signal example made of one of the 
offenders. And it is peculiarly equitable that the instance 
selected for this purpose should be that in which the great 
person assailed and exulted over is recently dead, and the 
comparatively small one assailing, enjoys immense benefits 
connected with his capacity of partisan. 

Another good reason for the publication, if the work 
justifies the title, is, that it must necessarily form, by its 
proofs and illustrations, a valuable historical supplement to 
Mr. Pox's work. It must be, in effect, partly the same 
thing as if Mr. Fox himself had investigated each question 



VALUE OF THE VINDICATION. 497 

to its utmost minuti®, had produced more authorities, and 
trebly fortified every assertion. The Vindicator may have 
fortified the statements, even more completely than the 
historian himself could, — having had the advantage of being 
directed, by the attempts of an earnest enemy, where to 
accumulate the means of defence. The evidence which 
effectually defends a work against a long laborious attack 
in detail, must be of an extremely specific nature ; and the 
corroboration thus obtained is therefore of very great value. 
If, then, Mr. Hey wood is successful, Mr. Pox's work both 
acquires a more decisive authority than it could be held to 
possess before it had sustained the attack, and annihilated 
the assailant, and is made, by Mr. Heywood's defensive 
accessions, a much ampler history of the events to which it 
relates. And as Mr. Fox's book is sure to be among the 
very first of those that will be consulted in future times, by 
such as shall in those times carry their retrospect so far as 
to the events in question, much of Mr. Heywood's auxiliary 
assemblage of evidence will justly claim to go down with the 
principal work, to confirm and to amplify its representations. 
Thus the work, in point of value, takes a higher and more 
general ground than that of being merely a defence of a 
particular book against the exceptions of a Mr. Eose. 

Another good reason for such a publication, may perhaps 
be found in the necessity of checking the assumption of 
official men, and exciting in the nation a salutary suspicion 
of them. It is not seldom seen, with what an air of conse- 
quence the general claims of a minor public functionary 
shall be put forth ; but he is apt to take a tone peculiarly 
authoritative and oracular, whenever he is pleased to pro- 
nounce upon questions demanding the kind of knowledge 
and of judgment supposed to be acquired among exact 
details and minute records. He assumes, as a thing admit- 
ting no dispute, that, in his official capacity, he is the 
perfection of accuracy ; and, on the strength of this assump- 
tion, confidently claims credit for the same virtue in any 
extra-official application of his knowledge. And there is 
among mankind an extreme willingness to yield to such 
men this credit for accuracy, both in matters within their 
office and in matters without it. This facility of confiding 
arises partly from indolence, partly from want of the means 

K K 



498 VINDICATION OP FOX'S HISTORY. 

of judging, and partly from that reverence of government, 
through all its branches, which has always been one of the 
most prominent features of the human character. Now, if 
it be really true, as many shrewd observers of human 
nature and of men in place, have asserted, that there is, 
after all, no security against many and great errors in the 
arrangements, reckonings, and statements of these men, 
without the constant interference of a suspicious vigilance 
on the part of those whose affairs they administer, — it may 
be very useful, as tending both to recover the people from 
this blind confidence, and to check the assurance that 
demands it, that, when any one of these official men 
ventures out from the shaded and the guarded sanctuary of 
state, where he is but very imperfectly within reach of 
scrutiny, and takes a ground where he can be subjected to a 
full and public examination, — it may be very useful for 
some keen inquisitor to seize upon him, and put to a severe 
test this public, ostentatious, and challenging display of his 
virtue of exquisite accuracy ; which he himself cannot dis- 
own to be a very fair specimen of his general accuracy, and 
an illustration of his official accuracy, when he professes 
that it is from the official cultivation of this virtue, that so 
much of it comes to appear in the extra-official performance. 
"We will name only one more of the good effects likely to 
attend such a work, and making it desirable. It may serve 
as a warning that no man, in or out of office, who is not 
very sure he is a superior man to Mr. Rose, should write 
(or at least should publish if he has written), a polemical 
quarto in the spare hours of a very few weeks ; or that, at 
any rate, if he is under the compulsion of fate to perform 
such an operation within such a time, it should not be 
against another book of little more than the same bulk, on 
which one of the strongest minds in the world has expended 
about the same number of years that the said assailant can 
afford weeks. Or, if any man should ever again be under 
the power and malice of fate even to this whole melancholy 
extent, the warning may, at the very least of all, be of 
service so far as to raise him from that last worst spite of 
his evil fortune, that would make him go through this task 
with an air of the most honest and lively self-congratulation 
on performing a victorious exploit ! 



MR. EOSE'S COMPLETE DEFEAT. 499 

These, we should think, will be admitted to be very good 
and sober reasons (and others might be added), why the 
book should come before the public, if it be what it pro- 
fesses to be. With this admission, the reader must begin 
the perusal ; — and by the time he comes to the conclusion, 
it may be difficult for him to refuse admitting also that the 
book does fulfil, with extraordinary fidelity, the promise or 
threat in the title. He will probably be of opinion, that he 
never witnessed an attack more cool, comprehensive, and 
effectual, nor a defeat involving a more hopeless and com- 
plete humiliation; — complete, unless it be an alleviating 
circumstance that it will not be insulted with pity. Mr. 
Eose came forward a good deal in the manner of a person 
called upon by duty to stop the progress of a public mis- 
chief, and remove a public nuisance. The leisure fragments 
of a very few weeks were all that could be spared for the 
purpose from his valuable time ; but quite enough for the 
easy task of deposing Mr. Fox from the dignified rank of 
historian, and proving his deeply pondered judgments and 
carefully conducted narration, to be little better than a 
series of mis-statements in point of fact, applied to party 
purposes by prejudiced and erroneous comments. The 
right honourable censor, in addition to that disinterested 
rectitude of judgment, the want of which in Mr. Fox is 
condescendingly apologized for, while condemned, holds 
himself forth as possessing a great advantage, in having 
been accustomed to " official accuracy ; " — and also he has 
the privilege of perusing sundry valuable manuscript docu- 
ments. One inducement to his interference, indeed, is the 
wish to rescue the character of a friend's ancestor from mis- 
representation ; but he also entertains the more ambitious 
hope, and meritorious purpose, of rendering " service to his 
country." The achievement is finished. The performer 
has constructed for himself a proud station among the 
ruined labours of Mr. Fox. He receives there, and proba- 
bly deems himself not much the worse for, several transient 
attacks. But, all this while, there is a sober, indefatigable 
engineer, of the name of Heywood, who has silently carried 
a mine under this triumphal structure, and lodged his gun- 
powder ; and while the redoubted occupant is regaling him- 
self with the self-applause, and all the rich rewards of this 

E K 2 



500 VINDICATION OF FOX'S HISTOET. 

and so many other "services to his country," up in a 
moment goes he into the air, frisking among the fragments 
of his pile, the companions of his jaculation. "We think no 
one who has a right notion of the virtue and duty of 
modesty in self-estimation, and considers the arrogance and 
contemptuous temerity of this proceeding, will feel any 
compassion at the catastrophe. 

It will be enough to notice a few of the more remarkable 
points in this long course of refutation; in which every 
animadversion and contradiction, so confidently ventured by 
Mr. Eose, is distinctly brought to the test, and the critical 
cognizance is extended even to some of those smaller 
blunders and inaccuracies, which would not have been worth 
fixing on in a work which had not rested its pretensions on 
the superlative accuracy of the writer, and which had not 
deserved, by the arrogant manner of its hostility, to be ex- 
posed all round in the completeness of its character. There 
is, however, no great degree of asperity in any part of the 
Vindication, notwithstanding that the author enjoyed the 
personal friendship of Mr. Pox. He seems to have felt too 
certain of the effect of his evidence and his arguments, to 
need to call his temper to his assistance. 

In a very long preface, he disposes of some matters 
touching the general qualifications of the two writers. He 
could not fail to be struck with the charity and innocence 
of the right honourable observer's excuse for Mr. Pox's 
inaccurate statements and erroneous reflections — " that with 
perfect rectitude and impartiality of 'intention, a man in a 
particular political situation can hardly form impartial 
opinions, because he breathes an atmosphere of party, with 
which the constitution and temperament of his own mind 
can hardly fail to be affected." As this judicious remark 
was doubtless uttered to be reflected back on his own self- 
complacency, Mr. Eose will have the benefit of possessing 
in the Serjeant's book, something analogous, in effect, to 
those remarkable walls and rocks, that are said to echo a 
man's words to him ten or twenty times. The reflection is 
sure to be repeated to him, with the most gracious and 
flattering effect, whenever Mr. Fox has on another, and still 
another instance, been proved to be equally accurate in his 
facts, and impartial in his observations. It serves as an 



me. bose's caeelesskess. 501 

interlude, by the enchanting melodies of which Mr. Heywood 
soothes and dulcifies his man when he has in one instance 
shown him he has written just in the style of a partisan and 
placeman, and is going to do it in another. And sometimes 
in addition, he warbles him a finale of surpassing sweetness ; 
— as when it is observed, that "the subordinate men of a 
party are more completely under the perverting influence in 
question than even the chiefs, since they are attached not 
only to the party by common principle, but to its leader by 
the still stronger ties of personal interest, gratitude, and 
affection." To this perverting influence, together with that 
extreme inattention, either learnt, or at least not corrected, 
in official employment, the Vindicator is willing, on second 
thoughts, to ascribe the errors of Mr. Bose's book, — for 
at first he could not help suspecting a less pardonable 
cause. 

Among the first exemplifications of the excessive careless- 
ness of that writer, are two quotations formally given in his 
Introduction as from the work of Mr. Fox — while the 
passages so quoted for animadversion do not exist in that 
work ; the one being a sentence contained in a private letter 
of Mr. Pox, inserted in Lord Holland's preface, and the 
other a sentence written by Lord Holland himself. And 
these instances of accuracy occur in that very same Intro- 
duction in which the writer, aware, he says, of the imputa- 
tions his work would be liable to, on account of his political 
connexions, professes to be " certain that he has been more 
scrupulous both of his authorities and his own opinions than 
he might have been in commenting on the work of any other 
author." Mr. Heywood then remarks on the dubious 
explanation of the right honourable observer's motives for 
writing ; and seems to have some difficulty in maintaining 
his gravity at the highly sentimental and pathetic emotions 
and professions relative to the memory of Sir Patrick Hume, 
— who had been dead eighty-five years, and who, during his 
own very protracted life, had not deemed it necessary, or, as 
the Sergeant is rather inclined to surmise, had feared it 
would be unavailing to his justification, to publish the 
Narrative which Mr. Rose was now in such earnest haste to 
produce in vindication of Sir Patrick against a charge — 
incorrectly represented as made by Mr. Fox, but which, 



502 VINDICATION OF FOX'S HISTOEY. 

whoever had made it, Mr. Heywood maintains — that Sir 
Patrick's own Narrative, thus produced in his exculpation, 
proves to be just. Spirited notice is taken of the under- 
valuing terms in which Mr. Rose very confidently delivers 
himself respecting the worth and utility of the whole of the 
Historical Work, and the trifling result of its author's 
researches for new information. 

Mr. Hose having made an absolutely rectangular devia- 
tion from his road to applaud Yertot, as an historian, the 
Serjeant cuts across and meets him with one of the most 
pleasant anecdotes in literary history. 

" This recommendation of Mr. Yertot by a person accustomed 
to official accuracy is rather extraordinary ; for it is a well- 
known anecdote, that when his History of Malta was preparing 
for the press, notes of the transactions at the siege, taken by an 
eye-witness, being sent to him, he declined to use them, saying, 
1 Mon siege est fait? " 

The beginning of the first section asserts, argumentatively, 
the just discrimination with which Mr. Eox divides the 
periods of our history at which the mind is disposed to pause 
for reflection. Among the marks or effects of national 
improvement, in the period comprised between 1588 and 
1640, the historian has noted "the additional value that 
came to be set on a seat in the House of Commons." The 
observer has taken the word " value " here to mean " the 
money it would bring ;" and to prove that the value set on 
the thing, in the period in question, was pitifully low, has 
cited an instance of five pounds being given for a seat in 
1571. Mr. Heywood observes that Mr. Fox certainly was 
not thinking of a market-price of a thing that cannot legally 
be sold, but of the more honourable estimation in which the 
House was beginning to be held ; but that even if he had 
meant a pecuniary price, the low rate of the article in 1571, 
could be no proof it might not have come to bear a very 
good price, by or before the end of the period, in 1640. 
The point, however, in which this argument bears the 
special characteristic of its author is, that, whereas the sum 
stated is five pounds, and the record cited is the fifth 
volume of* the Journals, the sum was actually four pounds, 
and* the record is in the Jirst volume. 

The judgment pronounced by Mr. Fox on the condem- 



EXECUTION OE CHAELES I. 503 

nation and execution of Charles I., that it was both 
unjust and impolitic, was accompanied by some qualifying 
observations. He said this proceeding was "a far less 
violent measure" than that against Lord Strafford, — that 
there was a certain magnanimity in the publicity of it, 
which contrasted favourably for Cromwell and his adherents 
with the private assassinations by which deposed princes 
have generally been taken off, — and that, " notwithstanding 
what the more reasonable part of mankind many think upon 
the question," " this singular proceeding has served to raise 
the character of the English nation in the opinion of Europe 
in general :" the impression made by it on the minds of 
foreigners, even those that condemn the act, having been 
"far more that of respect and admiration than that of 
disgust and horror." In these observations, Mr. Eose found 
great cause for censure, and even for "astonishment." 
That which is to be condemned in the proceedings against 
Strafford, he says, consisted only in a " breach or abuse of 
a constitutional law;" while those against Charles involved 
" a total departure from, or overturning of, the constitution 
itself." The publicity and solemnity of the proceedings 
against the king, he says, could not be any alleviation of his 
misery, nor could on any conceivable ground, inspire 
foreigners with respect. And he asks, If the publicity of 
the proceeding in the case of Charles deserves so much 
applause for magnanimity, " how would Mr. Eox have found 
language sufficiently commendatory to express his admira- 
tion of the magnanimity of those who brought Louis XVI. 
to an open trial?" 

"With respect to the comparison between the cases of the 
King and Strafford, the Vindicator insists, in the first place, 
(not, we think, with his usual simplicity and evidence) that 
the historian meant a comparison, not between the respec- 
tive degrees or essential injustice in the two cases, but 
between the cases viewed in that light, in which the wrong 
in the mode of proceeding against delinquents is distin- 
guished from the excess of the punishment over the de- 
merit. It may well be doubted whether this distinction 
was in Mr. Eox's contemplation. But in the next place, 
the Vindicator observes, unanswerably, that as to " over- 
turning the constitution," there was no such thing to over- 



504 vindication or fox's history. 

turn, the state of things having previously dissolved it : he 
might have said the king himself had abolished it, unless it 
was such a kind of thing as could consist with the monarch's 
systematic measures for rendering himself absolute. To 
the charge of extenuating the injustice by ascribing magna- 
nimity to the publicity of the proceeding, it is replied, that 
it was with this fact of the publicity before him that Mr. 
Fox did, notwithstanding, condemn the prosecution and 
execution of the king, and clearly did not, in adverting to 
it, intend to represent the proceeding as less unjust : that, 
however, there is, from the principles of our nature, and 
without our leave, something more horrid in the dark 
management of a secret assassination than in a public sen- 
tence and execution, even when unjust, — and that Charles 
did himself express an extreme apprehension and horror of 
the former : that, as contrasted with this treacherous and 
silent expedient usually resorted to by the deposers of 
monarchs, there was a degree of magnanimity in conducting 
the whole proceedings in view of the whole world; that 
even Hume has expressed himself in still stronger terms to 
the same eifect ; and that as to the admiration of foreigners, 
Mr. Pox asserts it simply as a matter of fact, which no 
man had ampler means of knowing, but as to which he also 
appeals to all who have read their books and extensively 
conversed with them. 

The allusion to Louis XVI. calls forth a zealous and pro- 
longed exertion of the Vindicator, giving him at the same 
time all the advantage of an assailant. He considers the 
expressions as not only equivalent to an assertion that, on 
the principles implied in the Observations on the case of 
Charles, Mr. Fox might consistently express the utmost 
admiration of the proceedings against the King of France, 
but as directly importing that he actually would have 
expressed such a sentiment had he spoken on the subject. 
Mr. Heywood suggests several grounds on which the injus- 
tice against Charles might admit of an extenuation, of which 
that against Louis did not. But not resting anything on 
this mode of defence, he goes to the plain fact — that 
Mr. Fox did repeatedly, in the most explicit and feeling 
manner, express abhorrence of the injustice and inhumanity 
committed in the trial and death of the French king ; and 



CHAEACTEE OE MOFE:. 505 

formal citations, emphatically expressing this judgment on 
the case, are brought from several of his speeches in par- 
liament, some or all of which Mr. Rose must actually have 
heard. The defence in this part has a tone of indignation 
to which the Vindicator is very rarely excited. 

The character of Monk, in the estimate of which Mr. Fox 
is charged with having exercised a " severity neither sup- 
ported by popular belief, nor by the authority of history," 
is next brought under discussion. It is prosecuted to a 
very great length, with eminent proofs of research and 
acuteness, and will put an end, we should think, to all 
serious dispute on the subject. He begins with a pointed 
reproof to the writer of the Observations, for invidiously 
seeking and making occasions of fixing on Mr. Fox the 
imputation of such a partiality to republicanism, as incapa- 
citated him for a just representation of the r events and 
characters of the period he had chosen. Mr. Fox's plainest 
expressions are shown to be grossly misquoted for this pur- 
pose. Nor can he do the mere historical justice of placing 
Cromwell's character in a fairer light than that of Monk, 
without drawing on himself such a comment as this : " It 
will require a great partiality for a republican form of 
government, to account for this predilection in favour of 
the destroyer of monarchy, and this prejudice against the 
restorer of it ;" — an imputation the convenient operation of 
which, as affecting the character of an author and his book, 
in these times, so far as it is believed, Mr. Eose understood 
perfectly well. Commend him, however, to the Sergeant. 

"Mr. Rose here exhibits the same childish partiality for kings 
which had been reprobated by Mr. Fox in the writings of 
Mr. Hume. According to him, the meanest of mankind, if a 
restorer of monarchy, is to be preferred to the possessor of the 
greatest mind and talents, if a destroyer of it. Mr. Fox thought 
more philosophically ; he felt neither predilection for the one, 
nor prejudice against the other, but, according to the best of 
his judgment, gave an impartial character of both. If Monk 
was a base and worthless character, it was giving no opinion of 
the cause in which he was engaged, to say so ; and if Cromwell 
was a man of a superior class, it was the duty of an historian 
not to withhold his proper meed of praise." 

The charges made by Mr. Fox against Monk are three : — 



506 

" In the first place, he reproaches him with having restored 
the monarch without a single provision in favour of the cause 
which he and others had called the cause of liberty. Mr. Eose 
at first endeavours to defend this omission by a series of hypo- 
thetical arguments, which, by their extreme weakness, afford a 
convincing proof of the truth of the observation he is combating. 
He argues first, that though this conduct might be regretted, 
yet it must be recollected that there could hardly have been 
time to settle the boundaries of the regal power ; and secondly, 
that Monk might have been of opinion that the restoration of 
the monarchy would have implied all the limitations of its 
ancient constitution ; but what these limitations were, or where 
to be sought for, Mr. Eose has not informed us. Certainly not 
in the history of the reigns of the two preceding princes of the 
house of Stuart; and surely Monk cannot be supposed by 
Mr. Eose, who has lived the greatest part of his life among 
records, to have formed any opinion of the limitations which 
existed during the time of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Thirdly, 
that Monk ftiight have thought any delay would have been 
dangerous. Fourthly, that he might have been less anxious in 
this respect, from his having been witness of the abuse of liberty. 
And afterwards Mr. Eose gives what he supposes to be two 
additional reasons, but which are in fact included in the fore- 
going ones, viz., that Monk might have been so disgusted with 
the scenes he had been witness to, as to be willing to give his 
assistance to bring about any change likely to restore order ; 
and that he might have been alarmed lest the army should not 
have co-operated in his designs." " That Monk might have 
defended himself by these arguments is certainly within the 
sphere of possibility, but is highly improbable. He had com- 
plete power over the army ; it was governed by his creatures, 
and was subservient to his will. If he had proposed that the 
crown, under certain restrictions, should be offered to the king, 
there was no existing power to oppose it." 

The infamy of Monk is consummated by the last charge, 
if just, which the historian makes against him, of having, at 
the trial of the Marquis of Argyle, " produced letters of 
friendship and confidence to take away the life of a noble- 
man, the zeal and cordiality of whose co-operation with him, 
proved by such documents, was the chief ground of his exe- 
cution." Mr. Eose observes, that this charge rests on the 
authority of Bishop Burnet ; and then relates the history of 
a most prodigious research made by himself into all manner 
of documents and memorials, the result of which is, he says, 



monk's base conduct. 507 

that, "it is hardly possible to conceiye that stronger evi- 
dence could be found in any case to establish a negative 
than is here produced to prove the falsehood of the Bishop's 
charge." In a very long and argumentative examination of 
the question, Mr. Hey wood has shown that other authorities 
support the Bishop in this charge, though it is insisted that 
his testimony alone would be of great weight. But a coin- 
ciding deposition is made by two good evidences, Baillie 
and Cunningham, the former of whom was contemporary 
with the event, and writes in a manner that proves him to 
have been very attentive to its circumstances, and interested 
in it ; the other, though he lived after it, was intimate with 
the Argyle family, and in a situation to obtain the best 
information on the subject. Baillie says, " "When his (the 
Marquis's) libelled crimes appeared not unpardonable, and 
his son Lord Neil went up to see his brother Lome at 
London, and spake somewhat liberally of his father's satis- 
factory answers, Monk was moved to send down four or Jive 
of his letters to himself, and others proving his full compliance 
with them, that the king should not reprieve him." Cun- 
ningham says, " Argyle, conceiving hopes of safety, set out 
for London, and came to court to cast himself upon the 
king's clemency. But, through the interference of Monk, 
with whom he had held a long and intimate friendship in 
the time of Oliver, he was presently committed to custody, 
and sent back for his trial in Scotland. He endeavoured to 
make his defence, but chiefly by the discoveries of Monk, was 
condemned of high treason and lost his head." It is an 
extremely curious circumstance that Mr. Hose did not take 
the trouble to look into these authors, even after he had 
read Mr, Laing's reference to them as corroborating the 
testimony of Burnet. To complete the force of this com- 
bination of testimony, the Vindicator proves, by a copious 
and clear induction, that the situations and employments of 
Monk and Argyle, in Cromwell's tim?, were such that it 
was almost impossible but there must have been confidential 
epistolary communications between them ; and then brings 
such evidence of baseness in Monk's conduct, after the 
Restoration, towards other of his recent friends and coad- 
jutors, as to authorize a belief, even on much lighter proof 
than that adduced, of the particular instance of villany 



508 VINDICATION OF FOx's HISTORY. 

imputed by Mr. Pox. It is proper to notice, that an addi- 
tional and absolutely decisive proof,* has been supplied by 
a periodical work in commenting on Mr. Hey wood's book. 

The Sergeant next traverses, very minutely, Mr. Eose's 
statements and reasonings relative to the point of time pro- 
per to be fixed on, as that at which our constitution had 
attained its " greatest theoretical perfection." Such a point 
(and it was the year 1679), had been named by Judge Black- 
stone. Mr. Fox named it after him ; accepting this precise 
selection, for the purpose of making a reflection on the 
inefficacy of good laws in the hands of bad administrators, 
rather than adopting it as any expression of his own delibe- 
rate opinion as to the period of " theoretical perfection." 
Our author, however, takes one by one, those several laws 
which the judge and Mr. Fox had specified as constituting 
the excellence to which the constitution had attained at the 
period mentioned, and defends, quite successfully in some of 
the instances, the approbation with which the historian had 
marked them. % 

Mr. Eose contends, also, that the blame of restoring the 
king without restrictions on his power is not to rest on 
Monk alone : — for, that the king was thus unconditionally 
called by a parliament freely chosen by the people of Eng- 
land; — that the nation was eager for this event, even on 
these terms, — insomuch that the interest which might be 
supposed to be created againsb any restoration by the pos- 
session, among no less than four hundred thousand families, 
of the Crown and Bishops' lands, which had been sold dur- 
ing the Civil War, had no perceptible operation ; that who- 
ever had proposed limitations would have been in hazard of 
being considered an enemy to royalty ; and that there was 
not in this juncture time for deliberation, as there was, 
happily at the Eevolution. 

In answer to all these allegations, the Sergeant shows that 
the whole affair was absolutely at the sovereign disposal of 
the army, which was at the sovereign disposal of Monk. He 

* From " Mackenzie's Criminals." This proof is also to be 
found adduced with a reference to Mr. Kose's Observations, 
in a note of M. Howell's, in a recent volume of " Cobbett's State 
Trials." 



me. eose's blustdees. 509 

shows that this general had the irresistible control over the 
composition, the proceedings, and the duration, of this same 
unbiased assembly, which so perfectly and independently 
represented the collective will of the*hation. He shows that 
the conscious impotence and the despondency of the people, 
will fully account for their making no active display of 
opinion on the subject ; and that it is utterly absurd to pre- 
tend to believe, that he would have incurred their disappro- 
bation by proposing to insist on conditions in favour of their 
liberties. He shows, however, that there were persons (some 
of them of high rank), bold enough to agitate it — among 
whom was Mr. (afterwards Sir Matthew) Hale, who made, 
even in this miserable parliament, a proposition for discuss- 
ing the desirable limitations, which proposition was instantly 
quashed by the immediate personal interference of Monk, 
who had been for some time in a negotiation with the exiled 
monarch to restore him unfettered by stipulations. As to 
the difference between the Restoration and the Revolution, 
with regard to the time allowed for deliberation and adjust- 
ment, we will quote Mr. Heywood's statement : — 

" At the Revolution, James fled on the 11th of December, and 
William and Mary accepted the crown on the 13th of February 
following, so that thirty-three days only could be employed in 
settling the constitution, and consulting the wishes of those to 
whom the regal power was to be committed. At the Restora- 
tion, a much longer time elapsed, from the period when Monk is 
supposed, by some, to have entertained sentiments favourable to 
monarchy, and the time when the king was in fact restored ; but 
at all events, twenty-eight days elapsed between the open declara- 
tion of his sentiments, made on the 1st of May, 1660, and the 
king's return to the seat of government." 

Extreme credulity, and several blunders in the statement 
of particular facts, are exposed, in the remarks on Mr. Rose's 
argument from the number of families possessed of the 
ecclesiastical and crown lands. It is proved, that, according 
to that very authority on which alone Mr. Rose can rest his 
assertion (an anonymous party pamphlet), he ought to have 
made the number much greater, even so great as must prove 
that authority to be utterly worthless. And Mr. Heywood 
quotes the precise words of a letter of Lord Clarendon, as 
follows :— 



510 vindication or fox's histoby. 

" I am not so much frighted with the fear of those persons 
who being possessed of church, crown, and delinquents' lands, 
will be thereby withheld from returning" to their duty, except 
they might be assured to retain the same. First, I do not think 
the number so considerable, of all those who are entangled in 
that guilt, that their interests can continue or support the war, 
when the nation shall discern that there is nothing else keeps off 
peace." Afterwards he again says expressly, " the number of 
those is not great." 

And in a letter to his lordship, from Mr. Barwick, it is 
asserted, " by computation, less than a year's tax would now 
redeem all the land that hath been sold of all sorts, which, 
upon the refreshment the kingdom will be sensible of at first 
upon his majesty's return, may possibly be granted." 

The Vindicator has taken, by the way, a dexterous advantage 
of the right honourable observer's indiscretion, in defending 
Charles's assumption of the throne without restrictions on 
his power, on the ground that he was thus placed on it by 
the will of the people, as declared by a representative con- 
vention, " elected," as he asserts, " by the unbiassed voice." 
It is hinted to him, somewhat irrisively, that a strenuous 
anti-republican should here have taken very particular care 
what he was about. 

Among the proofs of the baseness of Monk's character, it 
was asserted by Mr. Fox, that he " acquiesced in the insults 
so meanly put upon the illustrious corpse of Blake, under 
whose auspices and command he had performed the most 
creditable services of his life." Nothing will be easier to 
the historian's assailant than to dispose of this accusation. 
" The story rests," says he, " on the authority of Weal's 
History of the Puritans ; and is refuted by Grey in his im- 
partial examination of that history, and by clear evidence 
adduced by Bishop Kennet." He will have it that the 
corpse of Blake " was with great decency re-interred in St. 
Margaret's church-yard," though those of Cromwell, Ireton, 
and some others, were ignominously treated. Mr. Hey- 
wood has shown, first, that Mr. Rose appears to be en- 
tirely ignorant of the fact that the body of Blake was not 
dug up till many months after those of Cromwell, Ireton, 
Bradshaw, and Pride: and next, that the " story," as believed 
by Mr. Pox, does not rest on the authority of Neal alone, 



me. eose's bltjndees. 511 

for that Anthony "Wood, an evidence beyond all exception 
in this case, thns relates the fact, in his Fasti Oxonienses : 
" His body (that of Blake), I say, was then (September 
12th) taken up, and, with others "buried in a pit in St. Mar- 
garet's church-yard adjoining, near to the back-door of one 
of the prebendaries of Westminster, in which place it now 
remaineth, enjoying no other monument but what it reared 
by his valour, which time itself can hardly efface." "Wood 
naturally chose the smoothest terms he could, in relating 
such an act done under the authority of the restored 
monarchy; but his words convey, in effect, just the very 
same fact described by Neal in the terms " thrown, along 
with others, into one pit." Besides, as Mr. Hey wood justly 
observes, the circumstance of the body being dug up was, 
in itself, a gross and mean insult, and enough to justify Mr. 
Eox's expressions. 

But whatever be the fortunes of historian or judge, it is 
sure always to be bad times with Mr. Rose ; and the worse, 
the more he enters into details and records, in rash confi- 
dence of the accuracy so boastfully pretended to have been 
acquired in official employments. He could not well have 
been safer, than in legal and parliamentary history. "While 
working about there, he was as secure against any ordinary 
power of sight, and search, and seizure, as those active mo- 
lesters of our granaries which have their retreats and walks 
within the walls and under the floors — where nothing less 
keen and adroit than a ferret can find them, fight them, and 
bring them out. But even there this cruel and relentless 
investigator reaches him. For instance, if Mr. Eose is 
resolved to claim the merit of having detected two errors in 
Lord Coke, the Serjeant is very quickly upon him with an 
admonition to thank Mr. Prynne for the detection of one of 
these errors, if it was an error, a hundred and fifty years 
ago, in a book which Mr. Eose had before him. As to the 
other instance of detection, in which a proposition of Lord 
Coke was to be proved by Mr. Eose to be erroneous by 
means of the language of a statute of Edward VI., Mr. 
Heywood shows him that he does not understand, in this 
case at least, the legal parliamentary language ; that Coke 
was perfectly accurate ; and that, as the Sergeant tells him, 
" a little learning is a dangerous thing." 



512 VINDICATION OF FOX'S HISTOEY. 

Yet again. The abolition of the Court of Wards, an 
institution erected in the reign of Henry VIII., by- 
virtue of which, according to Mr. Rose's statement, "the 
king had the wardship of all infant heirs male, with the 
benefit of their estates, till they arrived at the age of twenty- 
one years ; and of female heirs till they were sixteen years 
of age, if they so long remained unmarried ; and the power 
of marrying both the one and the other to whom he pleased, 
or of granting the same to any favourite, together with a 
year's or half-a-y ear's rent, on their coming of age, for their 
relief" — the abolition of this court being mentioned by Mr. 
Fox among the things contributing to make the reign of 
Charles II., "the era of good laws," — Mr. Eose, allow- 
ing it was a great relief to the upper classes, says it was 
obtained, however, at no small price ; the commutation being 
a grant to the king of a perpetual excise, " which was so far 
from being generally approved of, that the question in favour 
of it was carried by the friends of government by a majority 
of only two." Now it was appointed for Mr. Eose and his 
readers to learn, from the Sergeant, that it was the " moiety 
only of a perpetual excise, on certain articles," that was 
granted, and that this was granted "without a division" 
" An attempt was made to settle the other moiety on the 
king for life, and negatived by the opponents of government 
by a majority of two, 151 to 149, which must be the division 
to which Mr. Eose has alluded." "Well may the Sergeant 
ask, " With the Journal before him, how can such a mistake 
be accounted for ? He takes the proper pains to inform 
himself ; the entry is a short one, yet in the attempt to trans- 
fer its substance to another piece of paper, something totally 
dissimilar to the original is produced." 

Sometimes the Sergeant amuses himself — for it is no more 
than pleasantry — with making out plausible appearances 
that Mr. Eose is more republican in his notions than the 
historian, notwithstanding all his pains taken to make invidi- 
ous imputations of this nature to that writer. He is 
brought into ludicrous contrast with himself on this point, 
by Mr. Hey wood's remarks on his strong dissent from Mr. 
Eox's and Judge Blackstone's opinion, in numbering among 
the things conducing to the perfection of the constitution 
at the period alluded to, the bill which repealed an enactment 



CONTIiO VESTED QUESTIONS. 513 

of the Long Parliament for empowering parliament to con- 
voke themselves independently of the will of the king ; an 
enactment which Mr. Fox thought an injurious infringement 
of the royal prerogative. 

The observer has contested the Historian's assertion, 
when speaking of Charles II.' s ministry, notorious by 
the denomination of the Cabal, that " the king kept from 
them the real state of his connexion with France ; and from 
some of them, at least, the secret of what he was pleased to 
call his religion." The Vindicator soon confirms this asser- 
tion by good evidence. But, seldom content merely to 
defend Mr. Fox, he is apt to find some means of taking a 
signal revenge. In the present instance he is immoderately 
barbarous. For Mr. Eose having cited, somewhat in the 
tone of triumph, a letter of Barillon to Louis, in proof that 
this Cabal ministry were fully apprized of Charles's money 
transactions with the French king, the Sergeant comes in, 
much like a Cherokee with his tomahawk, with this effective 
segment of chronology — that Barillon did not come to 
England, to write his letters, till seven years after 1676, the 
period of which Mr. Fox was speaking, and that they were 
written, concerning the contemporary ministers, a number of 
years, as their dates show, after the Cabal ministry had ceased 
to exist. 

The imputed agency of Clarendon in the base money 
transactions between Charles and Louis was alluded to in 
terms of reserve and uncertainty by Mr. Fox. The charge 
was made in the most full and positive form by the ob- 
server. "What evidence there is on the subject has been 
carefully examined, and is clearly stated by Mr. Heywood ; 
and the effect of it is, not, perhaps, wholly to exculpate the 
minister, but materially to modify the charge, though it 
leaves still in doubt what was the full extent of his parti- 
cipation. 

The next controverted question which occupied so con- 
siderable a portion of Mr. Eose's book, and occupies a much 
larger space in Mr. Heywood' s, is, whether or not James 
intended the substitution of Popery to Protestantism, as the 
established national religion. The author has pursued the 
argument round the widest extent of evidence, from docu- 
ments and from circumstances, and does appear to have 

LL 



514 VINDICATION OF FOX's HISTOBY. 

come to the conclusion, with a very preponderating proba- 
bility, that James was not in the earlier part of his reign, 
projecting anything more, in favour of the Catholic reli- 
gion, than its complete toleration. The letters of Barillon, 
which have been considered and cited by Mr. Uuse as 
affording decisive proof that this monarch designed the 
establishment of popery, become, under the more accurate 
examination of Mr. Heywood, very strong evidence of the 
exact contrary ; since it is the free exercise only, — the esta- 
blished toleration, — of that religion, that they precisely and 
repeatedly mention as James's object — and, so far as religion 
was concerned, the king of France's object in affording him 
pecuniary aids. This long argument, and the topic con- 
nected, with it, the invariable and predominant design of 
Charles the Second and James to establish themselves in a 
complete despotic power, lead Mr. Heywood into a series 
of extremely curious investigations and disclosures of the 
base characters and intrigues of these two sovereign per- 
sonages. It is a most melancholy reflection, and it haunts 
a thoughtful reader throughout the exhibition, that great 
nations, the assemblage of millions of beings with minds, 
may be prostrate under, and even worship, the authority of 
the meanest, vilest refuse of their own nature. 

But we are reminded it is time to end this article, already 
become, we* fear, tedious and tiresome, though we have 
scarcely proceeded through half the Sergeant's performance, 
and have hardly even alluded to one principal section, in 
which Mr. Fox is most completely and unanswerably vin- 
dicated against the observer's imputation of injustice to 
Sir Patrick Hume, whose defence the right honourable 
author alleges as the principal object in making his book. 
Indeed the Vindicator's task is, throughout, accomplished 
with a completeness almost beyond example ; and Mr. Fox 
now takes his rank decidedly among the most accurate of 
historians. We are glad of it ; and may well give ourselves 
credit that the pleasure arises from considerations inde- 
pendent of all political partialities. A man in the observer's 
circumstances should have perceived it to be a matter of 
extreme delicacy to censure a work, especially a posthu- 
mous and unfinished work, of Mr. Fox. The very least 
that might justly be claimed in such a case was, that time 
should be taken for the most careful examination of the 



COMPLETENESS OE THE VINDICATION. 515 

points intended to be disputed ; that some moderate degree 
of that solicitous balancing of evidence should be practised, 
for which Mr. Fox himself was represented as so remark- 
able ; that there should be a most exemplary modesty, a 
cautious resistance of every temptation to boast and parade 
about official accuracy ; and that whenever any advantage 
was deemed to be gained against so strong a man, it should 
be recollected how difficult it was to keep an advantage 
against him when he was alive. How much the reverse of 
this has been the observer's conduct we need not again 
remark ; but never did presumption precipitate itself to a 
deeper fall. 

~W"e ought not to have omitted, in the preceding para- 
graphs, one of the most remarkable of Mr. Hey wood's suc- 
cesses. In noticing the famous bill for the preservation of 
the person of king James, Mr. Fox suggests that there has 
been something much resembling it in later years. Mr. 
Rose will not allow that any such instance can be found ; 
and yet, amidst this denial, cannot help adverting to the 
Act of the 18th of December, 1795. Mr. Heywood prints 
the two Acts beside each other ; and their substance, and in 
the most material parts the very expressions are the same. 



JESSE'S SERMONS. 



Sermons on the Person and Office of the Redeemer, and on the Faith 
and Practice of the Redeemed. By William Jesse, M. A. 8vo. 
1812. 
]STo literary class can be named, in which the present 
acting persons have less respect for their predecessors, and, 
we might say, for one another, than in that of sermon 
writers. They are perfectly aware that — without going so 
far back as the puritan divines, and the learned and eloquent 
churchmen of the latter part of the seventeenth century — a 
prodigious number of books of sermons have been published 
within the lifetime and the memory of the elder portion of 
readers now living. By a glance over the catalogues of two 
or three of the London booksellers, it might probably be seen 
that the shelves of nearly a whole room, of competent 
dimensions for a study, might be filled by the assemblage of 



516 jesse's seemoits. 

volumes which would be formed by single copies of all the 
books of sermons that have been published in English, 
within less than a hundred years past. Now with what 
estimate do the present numerous writers of sermons regard 
this vast accumulation of kindred performances ? It is 
obvious, that their own multitude of volumes cannot engage 
so much as they wish them to do of the public attention, 
without an almost entire dismissal, from that attention, of 
these preceding labours. And why are they to be thus 
consigned to neglect ? Is it deemed that books of this class 
are necessarily transitory, through some peculiar fatality, 
which destroys them without regard to the qualities which 
they may possess or want ; and that therefore the reading of 
sermons will cease, if there be not a continued supply from 
authors who are, of course, resigned to the destiny under 
which their works also, in their turn, are soon to perish ? 
Or is it, that this accumulation affords really so very few 
books that deserve to live, — so diminutive a portion of sound 
doctrine and good writing, that absolutely the relief of an 
insupportable destitution of religious truth and eloquence is 
the object of the present very rapid issue of volumes of 
sermons ? Unless the works of the very numerous former 
contributors to this part of our literature, are regarded as 
thus necessarily fugitive, or thus indigent of the qualities 
indispensable to render them instructive and impressive, it 
may be difficult to find a plausible reason for that eagerness 
to publish volumes of sermons so manifest of late years. 
And even then, it will remain somewhat wonderful, how so 
very many persons have been freed from all doubt as to 
their own competency to carry on the course of this written 
instruction, in the best and ablest manner of those who have 
had their day, or to furnish such reasoning and eloquence, 
as those who have had their day are to sink into oblivion for 
having failed to exhibit. Some of these writers have such 
an estimate of themselves, and their predecessors, and even 
their contemporaries, in the same department, that they will 
confess they have not taken all the pains they might to 
perfect their compositions. They could not in conscience 
stay to do it, so affected -were they at the view of the 
afflictive public want of such a book as theirs. The com- 
munity had among them only some few millions of volumes 
of serious sermons, and were constantly receiving only a 



STYLE OF SERMONS TOR THE PEOPLE. 517 

few thousands more each month : and therefore who could 
be sure that souls might not " perish for lack" of the means 
of " knowledge, 1 ' if these latest sermon writers delayed the 
publication of their books, in order to labour them to the 
greatest attainable fitness for conveying instruction ? 

The author of the present volume has not offended in the 
way of violent haste from the pulpit to the printing-office, 
for these Sermons are a selection from those which " he has 
been in the habit of writing and preaching to his parish- 
ioners during the last twenty years;" but we question 
whether the case will be found in every point so unexcep- 
tionable. 

" He wishes the reader to understand and remember, that 
these Sermons were not written with any design to publish 
them ; and, that they are presented to him as they were deli- 
vered from the pulpit. If, as compositions, they are not below 
what any one may expect to hear in a country church, and in a 
mixed congregation of people of various ranks, it may not be 
thought presumption in him to hope that these Sermons may be 
more useful to the generality of readers, than compositions 
intended for the critical eye of the learned." — P. 16. 

This sounds like the language of apology, and, in some 
degree, of humility ; but what does it virtually say ? It 
says, that, while there are before the public, partly in the 
form of sermons, and partly of treatises, an immense number 
of theological books, of which number a proportion, com- 
prising, in point of quantity, more than most men will ever 
have time to read, are of excellent tendency, and were 
matured with deliberate study, by able men, who made a 
patient and earnest exertion to display the subjects with the 
utmost possible clearness and force — it says that Mr. Jesse, 
quite aware of all this, thinks there is nothing like arrogance 
in calling on readers to employ a share of the time due to 
such works, in perusing a volume of such sermons as he is 
in the habit of preparing for the weekly services of his 
parish ; — strict care being taken that, having been intended 
only for this use, they do not undergo any improvement 
when selected for a higher. 

Nor is this all. He thinks that printed instructions, 
brought out in this manner, may even be " more useful to 
the generality of readers" than compositions intended for 
learned and critical ones ; — not meaning, we presume, more 



518 jesse's sermons. 

useful than they would have been if they had contained 
direct matters of learning and criticism ; that is too flatly 
evident to be worth saying ; but more useful to them than 
they would have been if the general tenor of the composition 
had been intended to satisfy the " critical eye." Here we 
shall be allowed to ask, what is it that the " critical eye of 
the learned" demands in a theological composition, when 
direct learning and criticism are out of the question? "What 
is it, but a definite general statement of the subject? "What, 
but a lucid natural order in the series of explanations ? 
What, but perfect conception in each of the thoughts, and 
clear expression in each of the sentences, together with such 
a connexion in the succession of thoughts and sentences, as 
to make them all intelligibly and forcibly lead to the intended 
point ? And are not these properties of a composition which 
the critical reader requires, the very things which the "gene- 
rality of readers" need? Is it not the first object, and a 
most diificult one, to give those readers a clear understand- 
ing of the subject ? And the way to do this is, to treat it 
in such a mode of composition as a truly " critical eye" 
would perceive to have the primary qualities of good com- 
position. We have met with not a few occasions of indulging 
some degree of wonder at a notion, that less careful labour 
is necessary in writing, in proportion as the expected readers 
are less disciplined by learning and criticism ! As if their 
not having been accustomed to accurate thinking, rendered 
them just so much the more capable of deriving clear ideas 
from negligent writing. 

On the whole of this matter, we think it is not easy, in 
the present circumstances of literature, to be guilty of an 
excess, in censuring that presumptuous contempt of higher 
examples, that low valuation of people's time, and that indif- 
ference, in part at least, to the purpose professed — their 
instruction — which are manifested in coming on the public 
with compositions, executed in a hasty and imperfect 
manner, and accompanied by an avowal, in effect, that the 
instruction of the readers was not deemed an object to make 
it worth while to attempt any improvement in those compo- 
sitions. It is really quite time for the writers of sermons 
to be admonished, that when they are resolving on publica- 
tion, they should condescend to admit such a sense of the 
extent of their duty, as would be impressed by reflecting a 






MEDIATOBIAL ECONOMY. 519 

few moments, what other sermons in the language the per- 
sons to be instructed might be reading, during the time they 
are expected to employ in reading the volumes now to be 
presented to them : and we cannot think a very lenient lan- 
guage is due to writers who have never made this reflection, 
or have evidently disdained to profit by it. 

The unusual length of the preface to this volume seemed 
to intimate that there must be something peculiar, and 
requiring preparatory explanation, in the design or execu- 
tion ; and we presumed that an attentive perusal of it would 
qualify us to go forward. We must confess, however, that 
in more than one attentive reading, we failed to reach the 
meaning. It is a most confused attempt to distinguish 
between "essential truths" and " subordinate truths," in 
the Christian religion, and to instruct contemporary 
preachers to dwell much more, than it is believed they do, 
on the former class. These " essential truths " are limited, 
in some undefined or ill-defined way, to " the doctrines con- 
cerning the Person and Office of the Redeemer," those 
doctrines being, as far as we are enabled to conjecture, so 
understood as to exclude, and consign to the subordinate 
class, the greatest number of the truths declared in the 
scriptures; — so understood as to exclude doctrines which 
must constitute much of the practical meaning of the term 
office, as applied to the Messiah. For instance, the doc- 
trine of justification by faith is specified as not being one 
of the " essential truths ;" and we find in the " subordinate" 
class the doctrine of "that great defect in our common 
nature, as destitute of the spirit of holiness, and prone in 
all its tendencies to earthly things," and of " our utter 
insufficiency, without the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
to will and do anything which is spiritually good." And 
though such " subordinate truths " are allowed to have their 
importance, it is represented that what is essentially the 
gospel may be effectually apprehended without them. 

"He that rightly apprehends the personal character and 
office of the Redeemer, may be wise unto salvation, though he 
be ignorant of everything else ; or, though he knew little or 
nothing distinctly of the subordinate truths, or mistakes their 
meaning." — P. 6. 

As if the office of the Redeemer were something substantive 
and absolute, instead of a relation which he has assumed to 



520 jesse's sebmons. 

the human race, the nature and effect of which relation are 
denned or explained by a combination of those doctrines 
which would here be denominated subordinate. It is very 
much at hazard, however, that we make any attempt at 
stating the import of this long preface. 

The reader will be freed in a good measure from this 
difficulty of understanding, when he advances into the 
Sermons themselves, which are on the following subjects : — 
The Antiquity, Importance, and Truth of the Doctrine of 
Salvation — Isaiah's Prophecy of the Saviour's Advent — 
the Birth of Jesus Christ — Calling his name Jesus — the 
Humility of Christ — Christ our great High Priest — the 
scriptural Doctrine of Redemption — a [Resurrection of the 
Dead, the Doctrine of both the Testaments — the Resur- 
rection of Christ and ours equally certain — Our Saviour's 
Ascension into Heaven — preaching Christ crucified — the 
unchangeable Friend — the Author of eternal Salvation to 
them that obey Him — the True "Vine — the Divine Mercy, 
and the Christian Temper and Conduct — Christian Practice 
— Christian Charity — Doing the "Will of God — the Gospel 
hid to them that are lost. 

It will be perceived, that, though there is not much spe- 
ciality in the subjects, they are chiefly of one general cha- 
racter ; and the selection of the Sermons, we are informed, 
was determined by the subjects, " and not at all by any 
conceit of excellence in their composition." Though there 
is a slight peculiarity in the author's view of Christianity, 
these subjects are presented, substantially, in the same light 
as in the ordinary ministrations of evangelical preachers. The 
doctrines are not stated with any remarkable precision, nor 
maintained with any steady process of argument. The 
composition is indeed, for the most part, quite loose and 
immethodical ; a succession of thoughts, connected or not 
connected, as the case may happen — easily occurring to a 
mind not accustomed to any severity of intellectual disci- 
pline — and hastily thrown on paper just as they occurred. 
A large proportion of them are perfectly commonplace. 
Here and there they carry a degree of point and discrimi- 
nation. A few of them are considerably raised and bold ; 
and now and then they are extravagant, from carelessness 
or from system. 

The whole strain of the Sermons indicates, we think, much 






THEIB VAGUENESS AND INSUEEICIENCY. 521 

genuine piety and zeal, great familiarity with the scriptures 
(quoted, however, too much in masses), and very little per- 
sonal ostentation. The exhortations are serious and earnest, 
and the whole language runs on in a free, inartificial manner. 
Our greab complaint is, that there is but little accurate, 
sterling, useful thinking ; but little to make any reader feel 
that he better comprehends any part of religion. There is 
also a great sameness of sentiment through the volume. 
And this is a natural consequence of that . peculiarity we 
have alluded to, in the mode in which he contemplates 
revealed truth, and zealously insists that every Christian 
instructor should apprehend and display it. The peculiarity 
consists in a frequent express repetition, and a habitual 
systematical observance of a principle formed on a strained 
inference from the apostle's determination, expressed to 
the Corinthians, " not to know anything among them save 
Jesus Christ, and him crucified." It may be presumed 
that all enlightened and devout readers of the Bible must 
clearly perceive the grand pre-eminence of the doctrine of 
a Mediator among the doctrines of that revelation ; must 
perceive that this great truth, or rather combination of 
truths (for it comprises in its very essence several truths 
in detail) throws a peculiar light over the whole system of 
moral and religious truths, and places them all in a certain 
relation to itself; and that therefore a Christian speculator 
must contemplate them, reason on them, and inculcate 
them, in that light and that relation, from a conviction 
that otherwise his view of them will be incomplete or 
deceptive. But what Mr. Jesse insists on, is something 
different from this. Nothing, to be sure, could well be 
stated with less precision than his view of the subject, 
though it is so often reverted to ; and we cannot hope to 
make it intelligible by saying — that his principle is, that all 
religious and moral truth, at least all that a Christian can 
consistently regard or teach, is in some manner formally 
contained in, and absolutely of a piece with, the doctrine of 
a suffering Saviour ; insomuch that no point of morals and 
religion can with propriety be argued or enforced, otherwise 
than as a constituent part of this comprehensive doctrine. 
Whatever may be the precise nature and extent of the 
principle, it aims to assert something much more than that 
the doctrine on all moral and theological subjects should be 

M M 



522 jesse's seemons. 

so taught, as to be strictly in coincidence with the chief 
points in the theory of the mediatorship of Christ, so as to 
form consistent adjuncts to that theory, and compose, 
together with it, and in conformity to it, one wide and 
complicated, but harmonious system. It is obvious, even 
to Mr. Jesse, that all the vast assemblage of important 
propositions which constitute the grand whole of moral and 
religious truth, cannot be identical with those distinct pro- 
positions, which enounce specifically the mediatorship of 
Christ, or the several parts or views of that mediatorship ; 
but he will have all those numerous propositions so consub- 
stantial (if we may so express it) with these particular and 
comparatively few propositions, that all the diversified 
truths they express, or seem to express, shall be but modi- 
fications or parts of the doctrine enounced in these propo- 
sitions respecting the mediatorship. Or, at last, all the 
truths that are fit for Christian use must so be consubstan- 
tial with that doctrine ; and thus all right statement of reli- 
gious and moral truth will strictly be, in substance, preach- 
ing Christ " crucified." "We are aware that these lines of 
ours will appear extremely obscure, though we may think 
them sunbeams of light and precision compared with those 
of our author. If they do not convey something like his 
doctrine (we really cannot be certain of the identity), we 
wish that either it had been better explained, or all printed 
enlargement on it forborne. 

The effect of such a principle, in its practical observance 
in teaching religion, will be, either the exclusion from 
notice of a great number of important truths and moral 
maxims held forth in the comprehensive instructions of the 
Bible, and deducible from just reasoning on its declarations; 
or a most laborious systematic endeavour — not to exhibit 
all the truths in harmony, on the grand basis of the 
mediatorial economy, but — to force them all into one form, 
of course to constrain some of them to seem to be different 
truths from what they really are — if there be not too much 
absurdity in such an expression. In either of these ways, 
the system of religion and morals will be rendered vastly 
narrower than the Bible, and presented to inquiring minds 
in a form which they must abjure their most established 
rules of right thinking in order even to understand. 



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